


Council of Thieves: Traitor

by Isada



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Actors, Asexual Character, Assassination Attempt(s), Attack hair, Cults, Devils, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, LGBTQ Character, Long action scenes, Magic, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Sexual Bondage, Shapeshifting, Theatre, Undead, Urban Fantasy, Vampires, Witches, fey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-02-19 13:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 78,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isada/pseuds/Isada
Summary: Based on Pathfinder's Council of Thieves campaign comes the action-packed (seriously, there are so many fight scenes) story of an assassin turned homeless millennial forced to grow up during a time of political turmoil (huhhh, wonder what ever could have inspired that...).Spoilers: Council of Thieves campaign adventure path (Pathfinder/3.5e)





	1. The Sewer Says Hi

Chapter 1: The Sewer Says Hi

Mathal peered around the corner of the lightless, muggy sewer tunnel and received a noseful of wet rubble dust, wet decay, and wetter refuse. She jerked back, flat against the damp, sweating wall, and yanked the wooden clothespin off her snub nose. She flung the useless precaution into the slow, volatile thickness below. It sank into the clumpy sludge without a sound. 

Mathal shut her eyes allowed herself a single, violent shudder of unadulterated disgust. The bedhead tangles of her shoulder-length, seal brown hair thwacked her sand-colored face and the small, fat turtle familiar on her shoulder. Chelon’s head retracted into a disapproving mass of wrinkles under his pitch black shell. She gave his shell an apologetic rub with a gentle scratch from her long black nails, closer to a snapping turtle’s claws than Chelon’s would ever be.

A faint, high-pitched yap of Goblin echoed from around the corner and down their tunnel. The upper half of Mathal’s head popped over the edge of the wall. Her hazel, demi monolid eyes pierced through the darkness.

The tunnel both fed into a gurgling cesspit to the south and channeled its filth past the cesspit under a rudimentary bridge of large wooden planks down three exits, two running north and one running south. Three goblins occupied the bridge. Each pointed down a different tunnel, precariously stomping and yapping with increasing force.

Unlike them, Mathal was not lost. Her target tunnel ran north out of the city of Westcrown toward the Hellknight stronghold at Citadel Rivad. She could either cross over or under the bridge, effectively a single option. Hopefully the goblins’s plight rendered them non-hostile because she didn’t have a crowd-dispersing spell to waste.

Mathal stepped out from behind the corner in full view of any darkness-piercing eyes. The goblins stopped yapping. She raised her empty hands to shoulder height alongside Chelon, who remained cautiously entombed in his shell. The three stood stockstill. She took one step forward. Another.

“Morning,” she called out in Goblin. “Just passing through.”

Each drew two little, curved swords drilled through with holes to reduce weight.

She cursed in Aklo.

They charged.

Small but fast, the goblins would clear the thirty feet between them in under six seconds--plenty of time. Mathal bent her knees into a lower-than-usual ready stance.

They came for blood with a high-pitched roar. Mathal’s black nails tore the red from the throats on her left and her right. The third goblin aimed both blades at her crossed arms. They never made it into striking range.

Mathal’s bedhead tangles surged ten feet out from her scalp. The witchlocks slammed into the goblin with the force of Mathal’s own magic. The goblin and their swords went flying into the rank sludge of the cesspit. They sank without a sound. Mathal gagged.

Her hair shrank back just over her shoulders. Her arms fell back to her sides. She straightened up between the fallen goblins and stepped over the blood pooling under her boots. Chelon’s head relaxed out of his shell only to radiate more disapproval.

She could, conceivably, have tried harder not to kill the goblins.

“I won’t kill the next one,” she promised her familiar in Taldane, Westcrown’s Common tongue.

Although, the chances of encountering anyone else in the sewers at four thirty in the morning were slim to none, which was exactly why they were here instead of braving the city streets and their nightly patrols of shadow beasts.

Mathal crossed the bridge over to the two tunnels that ran north. She pointed at the wall between them and reverted back to Aklo.

“Just checking.”

Between the motion and the words, magic flowed from the cold, silver coin in her chest and spread out in a sixty foot arc in front of her. Down the first tunnel, a chain of six numbers across one foot of stone block appeared in a pale yellow glow. 0-5-6-4-8-2, one of the marks used by boot-tier members the Orphanage like herself.

She ended the spell with a shift of thought, ninety minutes until dawn. The numbers faded back to invisibility.

The tunnel continued north. At each junction with a westward tunnel, Mathal checked for another mark. She was disappointed every time. She continued straight ahead long enough that she began to suspect that she’d missed her turn several junctions ago.

She dragged the nails of her left hand against the near wall. Grime piled up under them until the wet crud to broke under its own weight and fell in pieces.

Chelon raised his head to the level of her nose. She stopped. Metal clanked on stone in the distance, from the west.

The wall fractured under her fingernails. Mathal jumped back into a crouch, nails and tangles at the ready. A stone sheet no more than one inch thick shattered in a massive cloud of dust where she’d stood only seconds before. A willowy half-elf with shoulder-length, platinum hair and skin like faded brass shielded their face with their forearm in the false door’s doorway.

They coughed lowered their forearm in the clearing dust. Despite the darkness, typically impenetrable to half-elves, their silvery blue eyes spotted Mathal. They screamed.

Mathal launched herself in a flying tackle through the doorway into a narrow tunnel. Her witchlocks shot from her scalp. The tangles from her bangs wrapped around the half-elf’s mouth. The rest braced against the wall and absorbed the shock to keep from cracking any spines. She straightened off the half-elf but left the cage of hair around the two of them.

“You scream, you die, and not by me,” she growled in Elven too low to echo.

The distinct clanks of three pairs of armored boots rang down the main hall. The only ones who’d come down into the sewers in full armor were Hellknights. The sewer’s muggy darkness lightened from pitch black to smoky gray. Of course they had lights--only humans could afford to become Hellknights.

Mathal cursed in Aklo but pulled her hair back to her shoulders. She flumped flat against the wall between the half-elf and the opened doorway. The half-elf leaned off the wall, one pointed ear cocked toward the doorway. 

Strains of drunken conversation in Common accompanied the growing nimbus of light. She could run or she could fight, but the Orphanage’s mission demanded that she check the west-running tunnel ahead.

“May I cast a spell?” the half-elf asked in polished Elven.

Mathal threw up her arms and shook her head with violent apathy, her thoughts preoccupied by the impending murders. Chelon disapproved from her shoulder. The half-elf flicked their palm at the door.

“Hole-be-gone,” they whispered.

A silent image filled the doorway, an exact, illusory replica of the sewer walls on either side of the hole.

The furthest shards of the false, fallen door crunched under an armored foot. Chelon’s head disappeared into a mass of wrinkles. Mathal’s witchlocks yanked the half-elf flat against the wall beside her. 

All three Hellknights had stopped. Their armored shadows flickered in the torchlight inches from Mathal’s own feet. 

“Look at this shit--these Hell-damned sewers collapsing on us?”

“Nah. That’s Westcrown, man, part of that urban-poor charm.”

“I never thought I’d be saying this, but when are getting back to Rivad?”

They laughed. Then they kicked the stone shards into the channel of stinking filth and moved on south. The sewers faded back to their familiar darkness.

Mathal slumped off the wall and released the half-elf. They staggered to their feet but didn’t back away from Mathal. Instead, they waited in quiet conversational distance while her hair retracted. They must’ve been lost.

“No,” said Mathal.

“I didn’t say--”

“You’re still here. No, I can’t help you. I’m working.”

The half-elf inhaled up to their full height, only four inches over Mathal’s five-foot-seven. 

“I saved you and your turtle’s lives.”

They just had to drag Chelon into it. Her familiar’s head popped out from his shell as he caught the drift of the conversation. She’d never feel the end of it if she abandoned the half-elf now. She exhaled every last cubic inch of air in her lungs.

“Mathal. The turtle’s Chelon.”

“Oh thank the Dark.”

The genderless half-elf’s name was ‘Moris.’ It sounded fake when he said it, but she didn’t care enough to press him. She should’ve given him a fake name too, not that Chelon appeared to have any problem with him or the fact that he was a tag-along on her super secret mission. Fortunately, the Hellknights’s tunnel was the one she’d been looking for. That, and Moris didn’t question her either.

They followed the tunnel west until a final turn north. The tunnel made a pair of alternating turns, a zigzag constructed to avoid undermining one of the heavy guard towers along the city’s northwestern wall. The zagwall sported a wooden door set in a well-built brick frame, most likely a utility closet.

Mathal walked right by it to the grate, locked, at the end of the sewer tunnel. She crouched by the lock and pulled a slim, waterproof leather case from her backpack. She selected two of the sturdier but blunter masterwork picks and tucked the case under her arm.

“There might be a crowbar in there,” said Moris.

“We’re almost out of here--just hold onto your low profile for ninety more seconds.”

He’d already disappeared into the utility closet. Which meant its door hadn’t been locked. Chelon’s head retreated into his shell. Mathal lowered her picks and pivoted away from the grate, coiling tighter in her squat.

“Uh, Mathal? There’s an, ah--”

She dropped the picks and the case. She sprinted to through door before they hit the ground.

The utility closet was larger than expected, containing a dust-covered desk, chair, and a mold-encrusted sleeping pallet along with racks and shelves of rusting, rotting equipment. The cloying reek of rot and mold combined with the wet, raw burn of sewage to physically assault Mathal’s nose. She would’ve screamed if not for the creature that hung from the ceiling between her and Moris.

They called it a shadowgarm, an amorphous beast of black, oily shadow that favored a cross between snakes and insects in its manifestations. It should’ve been up on the city streets with the rest of the nightwatch, attacking criminals and pedestrians indiscriminately. Instead, its three, jointed claws stabbed at Moris.

He screamed and staggered back. Tools clattered off the shelves.  
The three razor-sharp prongs chipped wood and stone a hair’s breadth from his head. 

Mathal raked through its carapace. Black oil slicked to the floor off her nails. She slammed with her witchlocks, but the creature’s shadowy form blended with the darkness, and they passed straight through. 

Her fingers went numb.

“Light!”

She dropped to the floor, paralyzed.

The shadowgarm’s claws clicked at the joints and stabbed again. Their three prongs clanged off a wickedly curved blade in Moris’s hands. The sword arced through the dark and shadow. 

The lower/upper half of the shadowgarm flew over Mathal. The other half dropped to the floor. Its black, paralyzing oil splattered everywhere.

Moris dropped the sword and cursed in a language she’d never heard. A tiny flame sparked from his fingertip. He fell, arms stretched toward the monster’s corpse.

Light filled the room as a fan of flames bloomed across the oily body. The light alone burned away the shadowbeast oil on Mathal’s fingers.

She pushed up onto her hands and feet. Her tangled witchlocks writhed across the floor and plucked up the fallen, fully entombed Chelon. They set him over her shoulder. 

“So, no crowbar,” said Moris sheepishly.

“Shocker.”

He inspected both sides of his blade for any sign of the shadowbeast oil, but the light of the corpse pyre had burned all of it off. He returned it to a sheath on his back.

Chelon’s squat little limbs lowered and fixed on either side of Mathal’s collarbone. She grinned and gave his shell a triumphant rub.


	2. The Last of the Initiates

Chapter 2: The Last of the Initiates

The tunnel beyond the grate let out into a stream in the thick beech forest over Westcrown’s north wall, the light of the coming dawn as smooth and gray as the bark on the trees. Mathal had counted the minutes. It was five twenty-three, which left her thirty-seven minutes to get to the choke-point.

“See ya,” said Mathal.

“But we’re in the middle of a forest.”

“The city’s south--can’t miss it.”

She snapped her fingers cold and sharp in the brisk spring air. The coin in her chest burned with magic that spread through her entire body, filling her with nature’s own guiding instinct.

“True, but I feel safer with you and Chelon.”

Mathal’s head dropped back and she groaned through the wall of her teeth. Moris shrank three inches into a cringe. Chelon shook his little bald head. 

Mathal flung one arm out toward Moris, extending an open hand. His hand wavered but joined hers. Her spell of guidance flowed into him and filled him with a pale yellow glow. He’d still have to follow her, but at least now he’d be able to keep up.

“You’re free to run off whenever.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”

\--/--

They trekked in a northwesterly direction through the forest of pale trees and lush, dark moss that swallowed the sound of their footfalls. Though the thick spread of the beeches blocked all sight of the stream, Mathal kept them on a parallel course. Its waters would widen, deepen, and course fast enough to necessitate a bridge.

They spotted it through the thinner trees of the bank only minutes before the breaking dawn. Mathal ended her spell with a shift of thought.

“Stay out of sight.”

She scrambled down to the edge of the treeline on the bank and kept low in the spiny, scratching underbrush. The sturdy bridge was made of mortared stone and spanned the stream in a single arc that crested a mere two feet over the water at its highest point. The fast-moving stream shut down any chance of hiding under the bridge. The closest the underbrush could take her still left a hundred-yard stretch of bare stone and pebbles between her and her target. Which meant she had one shot.

Mathal rattled the bushes with her shudder. Chelon touched the top of his to her cheek. She allowed herself a quiet, nervous chuckle.

Pink light lanced the sky overtop of the trees. Dawn. Mathal fixed her eyes on the near end of the bridge and counted the seconds, fingers flexing.

Wheels and horses clacked up the gravel road. A small cloud of dust poofed in the corner of her peripheral vision.

“Bang.”

She shot toward the bridge with a magic surge in her soles. She’d barely made fifty yards by the time that the iron carriage had driven halfway to the mouth of the bridge, but if any of the ten Hellknights on the carriage-top or horseback had seen her, they hadn’t cared enough to stop. Their apathy was just enough.

Not ten feet from the mouth, the horses reached the edge of the bridge. Mathal hexed the ground. The gravel road erupted into a grasping tangle of quagmire under the wheels and horses. 

The horses reared in primal terror. Their sudden stop swung the full weight of the carriage onto the two narrow wheels of one side. It teetered for less than a second. The iron side smacked down into the quagmire, crushing two Hellknights and throwing four others.

Mathal didn’t have the time or spells to waste. The hexed road turned to solid gravel once more. Before the four mounted Hellknights could regain control of their steeds, she ran up to the nearest, bucking two and opened her mouth wide. A swarm of scuttling, coin-sized spiders exploded from between the rows of her teeth and blanketed the nearest two horses and riders.

Horses and riders screamed. The two riders clawed at the seething carpet of spiders but mostly at themselves and fell from their mounts. The two horses, much cannier about these things than the humans, galloped into the river. It swept them off in a northwesterly direction.

One of the two remaining riders cursed in Infernal, Hells’s own tongue, and galloped after the horses. The other glared daggers at Mathal from the other side of the ten by ten foot roiling mass of spiders, but they neither rode around nor between their screaming, clawing companions, so Mathal ran to the iron carriage. The last rider galloped in a northwesterly direction behind her back.

The two Hellknights wheezing and gurgling under the carriage had been crushed from the ribcage down, goners. Her black nails swept under their displaced helmets and ended their suffering.

Polished steel flashed in the corner of her eye. The first of the four thrown Hellknights to recover roared and charged at her. They dodged her lashing witchlocks and swung with a longsword.

The blade sparked against Mathal’s armored aura, the spell barely deflecting the powerful blow. She clawed at them. One hand clanged against their swiftly tilted shield. The other found a chink between their armored plates and came away red. It was not enough.

She grit her teeth and hexed herself. A shock of magic pulsed from her coin into her muscle and bone. Fibers frayed and bones snapped only to bind and set harder, stronger. She roared at the height of adrenaline having lost all sense of pain.

The Hellknight’s longsword slashed at her open chest. Her witchlocks turned the blade. The Hellknight, undeterred, spun with the momentum into a second slash. Their arcing blade pierced her aura in a flare of sparks and flung a line of red spray onto the grass and gravel.

Mathal went silent. She raised her head and gave them a tilted grin. 

Their steel flashed. 

But she was faster. She sidestepped into the Hellknight’s guard and uppercut with her nails under their jaw. Their helm went flying. It spilt red like an upturned can of paint. She didn’t stop to watch the body drop, turning instead to fend against two charging Hellknights.

The first’s longsword glanced harmlessly off her aura. The second’s sliced between her ribs and waist.

She pounced on the second. Her claws rent in a fury of red and black that tore the Hellknight’s body from their head before they could scream.

The first swore in Infernal and swung into her back.

The blade sparked off her witchlocks. She turned and tore her blooded nails through their throat like tissue paper.

The Hellknight dropped to their knees beside their sword, both hands clamped over their gushing wound.

Mathal plucked the useless helmet off their head. She set one nail against the weakening pulse at their temple.

A fourth blade drove through her aura into her open back.

She collapsed onto the dying Hellknight, but immediately rolled onto her back with a wheeze of blood. Her witchlocks caught the next blow.

The Hellknight roared. They forced the edge of their sword down through her hair to her neck.

Mathal slammed her crossed arms under her witchlocks, stopping the blade but pinning herself.

A fifth blade flashed.

The Hellknight’s helmed head flew clean off their shoulders at the end of a wickedly curved blade. Moris stuck out his foot and tipped the falling body so it fell beside rather than on top of Mathal. He offered her a hand.

“I’ve never seen anyone run that--are you alright?”

She spat a mouthful of blood.

“Just gimme a sec.”

Mathal grit her teeth and ended the strengthening hex. Her muscle and bone popped and atrophied back into place. One witchlock rifled through her backpack and retrieved a brand new, blackthorn wand. It placed the casting tip against her temple.

The wand sparked twice. Two crackling, snapping charges of healing energy surged through her body. They staunched the bleeding and dulled the pain but didn’t entirely mend her, which was good enough for now. Her witchlocks returned the wand and conserved the remaining forty-eight charges. 

Mathal sat up on her aching arms. Her witchlocks gently reset the fully entombed Chelon onto her shoulder before shrinking away.

Moris’s hand remained in the air. She took it and let him pull her to her feet.

“So, uh, why are we attacking Hellknights?”

“I honestly thought you’d run.”

“You kind of saved my life, so I kind of consider you a friend.”

Mathal could kind of see that.

Moris followed her to the back door of the iron carriage. She whipped out her sturdiest lockpicks and went to work. The lock clunked sharply.

“Clear.”

An olive-skinned Varisian immigrant with thick black locks less tousled than dishevelled crawled out of the iron carriage in chains. She waited for him to sit up, violet eyes squinting in the daylight, before working on his chains.

“You really took me for a tumble there, Agent…?”

“Don’t be disgusting.”

“Says the person dripping blood onto my very bruised and tender body--oh, hello. Who’s your pretty friend?”

“Who, me? I’m Moro--Moris, a genderless he/him.”

“A pleasure to meet you, ‘Moris.’ You can call me Fakename McAlias or Rizzardo, but only you, beautiful. I’m enthusiastically male.”

“I’ll bring you back in chains, enthusiastically emphasizing your failure, to an institute that doesn’t tolerate failure.”

Chelon radiated approval from her shoulder. Rizzardo winced and let her finish in merciful silence.

“This is less exciting but better, thanks,” said Rizzardo, rubbing his wrists. “Just let me get my affects and I’ll be all set for my less-than-triumphant return.”

He crawled back into the iron carriage with as much dignity as he could muster.

Mathal sat on top of the carriage’s upturned side to wait. She had a clear view of the bridge, the road, and the rushing stream as well as the poisoned, bloating corpses left by the now-vanished spider swarm. Moris sat beside her on the far side of the corpses.

“You’ve seen the crux of this job, so I’ve got to take you back with us for a debriefing.”

“For a bunch of criminals, you sound awfully professional.”

“Excellence in all things.” 

It was more Chelon’s motto than her own, as far as turtles had mottoes, but it was close enough.

“They’re going to offer you recruitment or a mind wipe. Take the wipe.”

“What would you say my chances are of finding a job in Westcrown?”

“Take the wipe.” Before he became a liability like Rizzardo.

At the thought of the devil, he crawled back out of the iron carriage in full recon gear, an outfit casual enough not to attract attention in the target district and neighborhood but practical enough to permit breaking, entering, and hasty retreats. Rizzardo swaggered over with an open envelope bearing the broken seal of Aberian Arvanxi, lord-mayor of Westcrown, flapping between his fingers.

“A little something to--”

He stopped at the sight of the corpses, turned, and vomited.


	3. It's a Hard Knock Life

Chapter 3: It’s a Hard Knock Life

They walked forty minutes back through the forest to the unlocked sewer grate and an hour and twenty minutes to the maintenance hole nearest the Orphanage. They clambered up into the sunlit warmth of a trash-strewn alley. They instinctively kept their limbs close, away from the moldy brick walls whose shutters, doors, and balconies hung precariously askew.

Unlike most of the city districts, the streets of the old temple district were quiet, largely abandoned after the disappearance and suspected death of Westcrown’s patron god, Aroden. Moreover, neither the dottari, the city guards, nor the militant Hellknights had resources to spare for the poor, bankrupted, and foreclosed. Which, questions of sacrilege aside, made this an ideal place for quasi-legal outfits to set up shop. The Orphanage was one of the most recent outfits to do so.

Its headquarters squatted behind crumbling, discolored sandstone walls. Rusted rebar twisted in fanciful angles atop the walls and between the gaps in the stone. Beyond the deceptively weed-choked piles of rubble in the unkempt courtyard, twelve statues of one human in twelve guises formed the columns that upheld the front face and rim of a fallen dome. 

Someone had tied strips of black cloth around the statues’s eyes in one final fit of superstition. Aroden’s constructs, artifacts, and faithful had all lost power along with their god. Little wonder Westcrown had turned to the worship of Archfiend Asmodeus and the hosts of Hell--infernal contracts were forever.

Mathal led Moris and Rizzardo singlefile, weaving around the many arcane wards and traps to the center of the open-air sanctum. A pockmarked mosaic of a dark, violet eye, the symbol of Aroden, stared sightlessly at the blue, lightly clouded sky.

“Don’t step on the eye.”

Moris and Rizzardo stopped below the black, outer rim of the iris. Mathal walked into the pupil. 

Magic powerful enough to kill her and any other mortal surged up into the soles of her feet, courtesy of the Orphanage. The air above the eye snapped, crackled, and popped with heat and static. Her teeth and hair stood on edge, and even her witchlocks unfurled under the arcane pressure. She braced herself and counted the seconds until the warding/killing spell reached her chest.

The coin resonated with the magical frequency. The magic shot back through her feet before she could blink, but she managed to keep her lowered, balanced stance, having learned the hard way not to stagger on the eye.

The iris soundlessly descended as spiral staircase around an obsidian pillar below the pupil. Mathal waved them down after her into a seemingly infinite hall of red and purple tile mortared in gold. Bronze mirrors hung across each other like alien windows from the walls but never in front of any of the dark, mahogany doors. Carved rats, the unholy animal of Mammon, ran along their borders.

“Holy--” Moris started mistakenly.

The nearest set of doors swung open around an already walking crowd of three--a woman with short, steel gray hair whose chalky face was as scarred as it was wrinkled, a towering, bespectacled and equally chalky agent and a military bearing, and a second willowy, platinum blond half-elf with silvery blue eyes, though his skin was a much darker brass. The two averted their uncomfortably similar eyes.

“Mathal, go with Arael,” said the woman, Janiven, Director of the Orphanage. “What’s your name, child?”

“No offense ma’am, but I’m pretty sure I’m older than you.”

“Moris,” said Mathal and Rizzardo.

“Here at the Orphanage, Moris, you are all my children. You and Rizzardo come with me.”

Mathal followed Arael to one of the many debriefing rooms. Stark, white tile mortared with silver covered the floor, walls, and ceiling. A single steel chair reclined in the center of the room. Its legs burrowed deep into the floor and connected to the arcane grid that lit and powered the entire complex.

Arael placed his hand on a tile by the door. The chair hummed, charging.

“I know I’m gonna see it in a literal minute, but where in the Nine Circles of Hell did you find that Moris guy?” asked Arael in Elvish.

“He literally crawled out of the sewer.”

“Then I’m ninety percent sure we’re related.”

“Harsh.”

“Thanks, I’ve been working on my self-deprecations lately.”

“You could do worse.”

He snorted. She snorted. Chelon radiated an eyeroll. Mathal cackled unapologetically. The chair exuded a pale, yellow glow, fully charged.

Arael stayed at his tile on the wall while Mathal scooted flat against the chair. A tendril-thin current flowed simultaneously down from her coin and up from her chair. The instant they connected, every memory from the past twenty-four hours regurgitated through her mind in the blink of an eye.

“You weren’t kidding.”

“I never do.”

“Well, you’re done, so you’re free to do whatever it is you do when you’re not kidding.”

“Shower.”

“Good call.”

She and Chelon left him conjuring an unseen servant to clean the stinking residue she’d left on the chair and tracked over the tile.

\--/--

One bath-and-a-half later, Mathal dropped a steel tray embossed with a border of frolicking rats onto a table at the back corner of the cafeteria. Her ambiguously gray brick of brunch ration bounced onto the sticky, stain-proof white top, eliciting much disapproval from the squeaky clean turtle on her shoulder. 

She tossed the brick back, and it landed with a heavy clunk, wholly unphased. Even its passage through her digestive system would barely put a dent in it. A good pummelling might actually have been the secret to a more palatable texture if not flavor. One witchlock wrapped around the brick, much to Chelon’s horror.

A pair of high heels clicked sharply on the stark, white tile of the aisle behind her.

“Hey babe, how’s it hanging?” asked Amaya in Minkaian-accented Common.

The Tian-Min immigrant wrapped two dark, olive brown arms around Mathal’s shoulders and laced her fingers below the table. The nails had been painted half pastel blue, half pastel green, and detailed with tiny spring flowers. 

The top of Chelon’s head amiably bumped Amaya’s softly rounded chin.

“Just chillin, my villain.”

Amaya snapped the fingers of one hand as sharply as her heels. Her unseen servant plunked a brick-bearing tray down across from Mathal’s. Amaya sat on the table, her black, monolid eyes glittering with mischief, and swung her legs around to get to the other side.

They had dated, briefly. Their romantic relationship had ended because Amaya wanted sex and the asexual, happily celibate Mathal didn’t. They’d decided to try friendship instead, and it was working out better than Mathal could’ve possibly imagined.

“I hear the last of freshies--Ritz? Ritter?--whatever, nicked something real interesting. It sounds like either someone on the Council is outsourcing an attack on the funds of our Lord-Mayor Arvanxi or there’s a new player in Westcrown.”

“I can’t confirm or deny any of that, only wonder where you’re getting it from.”

“All the resources we spent on murdering anyone who tries to get in must’ve drained the interior budget because these walls are paper thin. Not that it matters--Mama Jani’s still calling in Ghontas.”

“Are you gonna watch?”

“Ghontas could power Hell with her hotness. You should come and bear witness. Or, just come and wingman me.”

Mathal set Chelon on the table and pulled a rubbery corner off her brick. She crumbled it over one of the tray’s shallow indents only to roll the crumbs one-by-one between her fingers. She lined up the tiny resultant balls in the indent nearest Chelon.

“Alright.”

“Yes! Oh, Chelon, wait--don’t eat that slop. What flavor does he like again?”

“Maggot.”

“Gag.”

Amaya waved her hand over the pellets for Chelon with a flourish. She repeated the spell and gesture over the rest of Mathal’s brick with the word ‘coffee’ and over her own brick with the words ‘mori soba.’

“Nontheistic blessings upon you.”

“Wow, way to offend the Argent Prince.”

“We’re not his cultists. We’re his mercenaries.”

Amaya shrugged and somehow segued the conversation back to the much more palatable brunch topic of Liason and Executioner Ghontas’s hotness.

\--/--

Free from any missions for the present, Mathal had time for her usual, two-hour, mid-afternoon nap. But she underestimated her own tiredness and overslept by four hours. She had to run down the hall in her oversized tee and comfy slacks with Chelon tucked under her arm to make it fifteen minutes late through the doors of the hearing room.

She padded barefoot on the red and purple tiles behind the semi-circle of Orphans to Amaya in her red and only dress with her black hair pinned and waxed into an elaborate knot. Amaya removed her foot from the otherwise empty seat beside her and slid the chair out with her heel. Mathal sat with Chelon in her lap but didn’t scoot any closer to the wrought iron railing. 

Janiven and Arael sat on a raised, mahogany platform at the head of the curve, which offered an unobstructed view of the proceedings on the floor below. They dressed in their sharpest and most expensive black suits. The soldier still stood beside Janiven but had exchanged their spectacles for a pair of disproportionately large black lenses that hid the vast majority of their face. Moris wasn’t with the three or anywhere in the room, fortunately.

Lilting Infernal accented by the harsh gutturals of the northern tribes rose from the pit.

“--and under threat of torture, you revealed not only the location of one of the safehouses so graciously afforded to the Orphanage by the most illustrious House Drovenge but also---”

The soldier left the platform and walked around the back of the curve to Mathal and Amaya. They removed the black lenses, revealing their original spectacles beneath, and held the former out to Mathal.

“What is this?” she hissed.

“Your apparent poverty is an affront to Mammon,” they hissed back.

“I’m poor.”

“You don’t have to be so obvious about it.”

They shoved the expensive if ludicrous lenses at her face, but she shoved one hand defiantly between her nose and the frame.

“Look, I’m not a cultist, I--”

“You’re a lifetime-indentured mercenary to the Archdevil of Wealth--there’s no effective difference. So you can either show a little respect during what amounts to a worship service, or you can leave.”

Mathal pushed the lenses away and set Chelon on her shoulder. Amaya backhanded the soldier’s arm in limp-wristed disgust.

“Sorry, Amaya. You’ll have to wingman yourself.”

“Ugh, thanks a lot, Vitti.”

Mathal stormed off, leaving the convicted Rizzardo and her best friend to their own fates.

\--/--

Mathal slammed shut the door of her room with an anger she couldn’t explain. Her confusion didn’t stop her from also kicking the now fully closed door. The mahogany cracked thunderously under her foot.

“Put it on my tab,” she screamed, almost in prayer.

Chelon put one stumpy leg of concern against the base of her neck. She put him down on the sleeping mat where she couldn’t accidentally hurt him. 

She grabbed her pillow and doubled over as though about to retch. Instead, she buried her face. She screamed. 

One was not enough. She screamed until she lost her voice. Only then did she let the pillow drop. She sank to her knees on the white tile beside it.

“Chelon, I think I hate the person I grew up to be.”

The hypothesis didn’t end her confusion, but it was enough to let her anger drain away.

The crack in the door remained, splitting the door from top to bottom in two unequal pieces. She could reach the door from where she sat on her knees in the middle of the room. It fell apart under her nails, one piece clattering to the floor of the hall, the other swinging wildly into the wall.

“Oops.”

Hopefully Amaya was having a better a time.


	4. Be Prepared!

Chapter 4: Be Prepared!

The coin in Mathal’s chest pinged at nine o’clock sharp that night. She got off her sleeping mat, set Chelon on her shoulder, and padded defiantly barefoot around the broken door and down toward the briefing rooms. The door of the selected room opened at her approach.

Janiven and Arael, still in their expensive black, sat on one side of a steel table. Vitti, no longer in their ridiculous lenses, stood at white-tiled wall behind Janiven. A bald, red-skinned tiefling with dark blue, tiger-like stripes on their horns, cheeks, and down their neck stood up from the opposite side of the table and extended one hand with a genuine smile.

“Hi, I’m Tarvi, she/her. You must be Mathal. I heard you were scary, but I don’t really see it.”

“It’s probably the pajamas.”

“Maybe, yeah. It’s hard to scare someone when you look like you just rolled out of bed.”

Stilettos clacked on the tile outside the opening door. In walked the fallow-skinned Ghontas, seal brown hair dishevelled and a brass tube of bright red lipstick in one hand. Kellids tended to be taller than the Chelish who populated most of Westcrown, but Ghontas was half a foot taller than Mathal even before her six-inch heels. 

“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” said Ghontas in her Hallit-accented Infernal.

Mathal sat, uncomfortably. The only reason for Ghontas to be at the briefing of a couple of Orphanage agents meant House Drovenge had a vested interest in the impending assignment.

“Arael,” said Janiven.

He scooted a black leather folder across the table to Mathal and Tarvi. Tarvi opened it immediately and spread all the papers out over the table. Only the map drew Mathal’s attention. The label read ‘Former Church of Erastil, current Temple of the Bats.’

“You’ll rendezvous with the Bats and their leader Palaveen at their temple at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Technically, this isn’t an assault on a house of worship unless negotiations turn sour,” Arael continued in Infernal. “The Bats are a group of bandits, also cultists, who’ve been targeting overland trade caravans, particularly those of our Lord-Mayor Aberian Arvanxi.”

“Oh! What kind of cultists?” asked Tarvi.

“The irrelevant kind,” said Janiven.

“The point is,” said Ghontas, “the Bats, like many on the Council, wish to return Westcrown to its original and far more equitable balance of power in which each of the noble houses, Arvanxi’s included, are equally accountable to the Twelve Seats.”

If Chelon understood Infernal, he would’ve been palpably rolling his eyes about now.

“Your mission is simply to open negotiations with the Bats. Find out what they’re after, offer a glimpse at the benefits of an alliance,” Arael pointed at the spread of papers, “--in general, make nice.”

“I’m nice,” said Tarvi.

“I’m not.”

“Mathal,” said Janiven, “you’re only accompanying Tarvi as security. You get her in, you get her out, and between your two objectives you say nothing and do nothing.”

“Ah, unless something untoward should happen,” said Arael.

“Or the Bats refuse an alliance on any terms,” said Ghontas. “If they can’t be bought, it’s your duty to purge them from our city. Utterly.”

That sounded about right.

Ghontas left them without taking any questions. Tarvi immediately placed both hands on the nearest paper and chanted a single magic word over and over under her breath, ‘remember.’ She’d be there for a while.

Janiven motioned for Mathal to follow her out into the hall. Neither Arael nor Vitti joined them.

“I understand you threw a tantrum tonight,” said Janiven in Hallit. “Do you care to explain why?”

Mathal could only stare at the red and purple tiles while her guts curdled with shame.

“Right. I’ve had your door removed and it will remain that way for the rest of the month. The next time you’d like to attend an event, what will you do about your appearance?”

“Go to the Closet. Borrow something appropriate.”

“Very good. And Mathal?”

“Yes, Director?”

“This is the last time we’re having this conversation. You’re a good agent, but you’ll never be great until you can be more conscientious.”

Janiven walked off down the hall and left Mathal smarting as though she’d taken a punch to the throat. A punch would’ve been preferable.

Vitti opened the door on his way out. Mathal ducked inside before the it shut. She sat back down at the table and picked up the nearest paper, vehemently ignoring the encouraging smile in Chelon’s aura.

\--/--

Mathal woke at dawn. Her doorway gaped like a tooth’s empty socket and let in a constant draft from the hall. She wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and grabbed a piece of chalk from the empty tin of coffee on her desk. She drew a circle around her on the floor. Chelon, already awake since who knew when, climbed out from between his blanket and wicker palette in the corner and into the circle. Mathal squatted down close to the floor where he didn’t have to crane his neck too high for them to lock eyes.

“Morning, Chelon. Ready when you are.”

A pale yellow glow spread from the centerline of his shell over his entire body. She placed her fingertips on either side of his shell with a tiny clack from her nails.

Up from the patterned scutes of his shell rose unspeakable, unreadable glyphs that wound in black lines up her fingers to her arms and all the way into her mouth where they vanished in her own pale yellow aura. Each line of glyphs readied a spell for casting--one for detecting magic, one for conjuring web, and one for summoning a tremor from the earth, among others.

Chelon had four new spells for her this morning. One would make her skin as hard as iron for a short time. Another would make her faster. One conjured a nightmarish swarm of flying teeth. The last let a witch to merge with her familiar. This one could last for several hours and longer after she and her familiar grew accustomed to it.

“Where do you get these?”

She left all her spells prepared but un-cast for now and headed to the Closet. A five-foot tall, steel sliding screen divided the room into distinct areas. The left housed a long, winding rack of clothes grouped by size. Three long aisles of steel lockers stood on the right.

Mathal placed her hand on her locker. A magic tendril extended from her coin and one through her hand from the door. The locked opened with a tinny click.

Her small, waterproof backpack hung from the left hook. Inside were her set of lockpicks and her healing wand. On the right hook hung the outfit someone had selected for the job. The fabric was worn and faded to drabness, and a size too small as though she’d nearly grown out of it. Or had stolen it. The layers, however, lacked all dirt and smell, so she would blend at a glance without distracting from negotiations.

She laced her shoes up last and tossed her sleepwear into a laundry bin out of courtesy. The Orphanage would take it for washing even if she’d left them in her locker.

Before braving the cafeteria for breakfast, she stopped at the stockroom. A line of stiff, steel chairs sat along the wall on either side of the door. An almond brown halfling with a spiky crown of sandy hair propped his feet up on a steel desk in front of a door at the other end of the room. He flung a Harrow card into a wicker basket in the middle of the room brimming with nearly a full deck. His narrow brown eyes, as dark as the back of the cards, lit on his potential customer, but he didn’t stop.

“Hey, kid. You drop by to say hi? Because your credit is crapped out for the month,” said Aberten in Halfling.

She cursed in Aklo.

“Ouch. My delicate, pointy ears. I tell you what, though--I finished your wand.”

“I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

“Neither. What I’m saying is,” he stopped flinging cards just long enough to throw a thumb over his shoulder at the door, “it’s finished.”

She cursed again. Then went for the door. Chelon radiated the turtle equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

“Look, I earned this months ago, so it’s not technically stealing. But if it is, Vitti can stick it.”

Neither argument appealed, but she could make her karmic debts after the mission.

Mathal passed rows upon rows of crafting tables piled high with tools, spell scrolls, and other odds and ends that spilled out into the aisles. A sea of wood shavings and a heady odor of resin surrounded the wand-crafting table. Her walnut wood wand stood out in its cylinder tin by virtue of being only one smooth and shining softly with varnish. She stuck it in her pack with the first wand and ran, echoing, out of the hangar for craft tables.

“Thanks, Abe.”

“I know nothing. I did nothing.”

He slid her a Harrow card facedown on the table. A desert of rolling sand in the foreground half-buried a tiny sphinx in the background.

“What does it mean?”

“You throw it.”

She missed.

\--/--

Mathal washed her hands of the last of the breakfast brick residue in one of the six bathroom sinks. They were sculpted from the same ceramic as the white tiles. The six stalls behind her gaped as emptily as her own doorway in the one-way mirror. She let her backpack hang from its steel hook on the wall for a few minutes longer.

She stepped back from the sink and pointed at herself in the mirror.

“Shells on.”

Her aura crackled and flared, briefly visible as it set as arcane armor. She could hold the spell for six hours now. It seemed long enough, but she’d prepared a second spell of mage armor just in case. She’d never been assigned to negotiations before.

Mathal plucked Chelon off her shoulder and held him in front of her so the line along his pale yellow plastron lined up with the scar down her chest.

“Let’s see how this works.”

Her aura flared again under his fat little feet but swallowed them up without a ripple of disturbance, mirroring Chelon’s own unperturbed reaction. Mathal swore in surprise but continued to support his carapace until he’d vanished completely.

“Hey buddy, you okay in there?”

From you.

Woah-ly--what?

I get them from you.

It took her a second to match the dry, coarse answer in her head to her earlier question about the spells. It’d been rhetorical, but she happily took the still-ambiguous answer from her talking turtle.

Cool, you can talk. That, that’s just wild.

I am ok.

“Good deal, bud. Wow. Ready to meet up with Tarvi?”

Ready.

She could feel it. She cackled wildly.


	5. Taken to Church

Chapter 5: Taken to Church

Mathal and Tarvi left the Orphanage and travelled to the ruins in northern Westcrown. The former Church of Erastil and current Temple of the Bats had been established in a lower-middle-class neighborhood for a community that lived within a few hundred feet of the church and ran shops out of the bottom floor of their homes. They were empty now, save for rubble, and most broken in the lower and upper floor windows.

They spotted the belltower before the temple. A large bow and arrow symbol of Erastil had nearly been weathered off the tower’s side. The temple itself stood across from an entire block of collapsed buildings blackened by fire. Those walls and beams left standing threw jagged shadows across the street and over its grimy but intact windows.

They stopped in front of the temple door with a piece along the centerline chipped off, leaving an ax-shaped hole. Weather and time had faded its carved border of elk, hunters, and farmhouses, the last almost laughable these days in which farms were owned by nobility and worked by Halfling slaves.

“Should I knock?” Tarvi asked in Common.

A faint barking started up at the sound of her voice and only grew deeper and louder, complete with a door-rattling clatter of claws.

“Down, Scabby!”

The clattering stopped but the barking didn’t. A bloodshot eye appeared in the two-way peephole.

“Name and business, or I shall have my people shoot you through with crossbows,” a voice shouted over the barks.

“But then we might be a bit too holey to enter your temple,” said Tarvi.

Mathal gave her a low-five in the shadows under the peephole.

“I’m Tarvi, she/her, and I’m here with my associate from the Orphanage. I believe there was a missive?”

“She/her, you--Hells damn it, Scabby! Vethamer, would you get him?”

The door opened a crack around a six-foot-tall tiefling whose orange skin appeared as tough and withered as jerky. Their grin was almost sheepish, but not quite, and it made even her inner turtle uneasy.

“Sorry about that, Miss Tarvi, and, uh, Mx. Associate. My name is Ostengo, he/him.”

He held out his hand, which Tarvi shook, but Mathal only shook her head and said nothing, as per her orders.

Ninety seconds of barking later, Ostengo opened the door wide enough for them to enter, but narrow enough that they had to brush by him to do so. Mathal went first, her witchlocks giving him their subtlest and most inconspicuous shove out of brush range.

Scabby, a thin, lanky and wolf-like creature whose eyes burned red with the very flames of Hell itself growled at her from the end of a leash wrapped multiple times around the arm of a second orange, withered-skin tiefling. Mathal didn’t like their smile either, but the fact that it wavered whenever Scabby strained against the leash and forced Vethamer to dig their heels into the mortared stone floor made it marginally better than Ostengo’s.

Two wooden tables sat under a mess of wooden betting chips, cards, and dice at the center of the room under a carved vista of bats in flight. The four chairs at each table sported faded carvings of antlers and archery. Crates and water barrels had been pushed into the two corners without doorways along with a handful of snoring tieflings. The cloud of sweat, beer, dog, and brimstone likely predated the sleepers but had strengthened thanks to their additions.

Ostengo led them to an old, creaky door propped open by a brick in what was clearly a fire hazard while Vethamer and Scabby followed behind. The letters carved on the mantle declared in Common: ‘Praise and thanks to--’ and all the words thereafter had been dug out at knifepoint except for ‘strength.’

Treadmarks had been worn into each of the creaking steps down the staircase. The sunlight that filtered into the sanctum stopped one step short of the stone-carved hallway below, not that the darkness made any difference Mathal or the tieflings. 

A muscular, six-foot-five tiefling with red skin and brick red mottling stood arms-crossed at the end of the curve in front of a simple wooden door. Heavy claws curled from their fingers in the same shade of mud brown as their bull-like horns. They rapped the knuckles of one hand below the door handle without uncrossing the other arm.

Mathal didn’t catch any response from inside, but the temple’s bouncer opened the door seven seconds later.

Twelve brick-lined crypts took up most of the wall space, while pillows and four tieflings in studded leather rubbing the hangover from the eyes and temples took up most of the floor. A single tiefling stood. A scar in the shape of Asmodeus’s own pentagram graced their brow but the infernal symbol of a bat hung from their black bead rosary. Unlike the others, they wore expensive silk robes under a magic-enhanced breastplate.

“These are them from the Orphanage,” said Ostengo. “Miss Tarvi, Mx. Associate, presenting our Father Palaveen.”

“The Bats and I humbly welcome you both to the Temple of Nocticula,” said Palaveen with a curt bow.

“Thank you very much. Consider us welcomed, Father Palaveen,” Tarvi giggled. “Perhaps we could speak at length upstairs over breakfast?”

“There’s a breakfast prepared in my office, but your associate is certainly welcome to wait upstairs. Ostengo, Vethamer, keep Mx. Associate company, would you?”

Mathal shifted into her subtlest ready stance but Tarvi only gave her a reassuring smile. Mathal reluctantly stood down as Tarvi followed Palaveen through the north-facing door behind him. Only after checking to see if any of the other tieflings went after them--they didn’t--Mathal headed back upstairs with Scabby and the escorts.

Ostengo swept the cards, dice, and betting chips over to his side of the table and began shuffling. Vethamer barely kept Scabby restrained behind his right shoulder. Four newly awakened tieflings gathered behind his left in a beer-sweat fog. Three remained snoring.

“Are you a betting kind, Mx. Associate?” asked Ostengo over the flying, thwipping cardbacks.

She shrugged.

“What kind of cultist of Mammon doesn’t chase coin?” laughed Vethamer.

The thought of throwing Vitti’s claim of cultship back in their face once the Orphanage got the bill was more than enough reason to lose a few games.

“What’s the ante?”

“Ten gold,” said Ostengo, sliding three stacks of chips over to her side of the table.

“I’m not carrying ten gold.”  
“Lucky for you, you Orphans now have credit with the Bats.”

She tossed a coin off the top into the center of the table, much to Chelon’s disapproval.

“Deal.”

Ostengo was as good a card sharp as he was a card shuffler. He never won by more than a few points and even lost a few games only to win it all back later, which put the Orphanage out by two thousand five hundred gold and left Mathal with half a stack.

“That’s some dent,” whistled Vethamer.

“We may have to get some...collateral.”

No deal.

She was with Chelon on this one. Everything about the way that had come out of Ostengo made her queasy. She slid the half a stack back.

“I’m out.”

“Apologies, Mx. Associate, but you are already over two thousand in deep.”

“Care to show us what’s in the backpack.”

“No.”

“I thought not. Lucky for you, we Bats take other forms of down payment.”

“Being the servants of Nocticula, see, we hold the body--”

“Wait, Nocticula’s the archdevil of what?”

All six tieflings snickered from across the table.

“Nocticula is no archdevil. She’s the Demon Lord of Darkness and Lust, unholy patron of assassination, lechery, and other crimes of passion.”

“You’re cultists of the Demon Lord of Rape.”

“Rape is such a strong word. We prefer--”

She stood and hexed the ground. Sixty square feet of temple floor erupted into a tangling quagmire. Nine tieflings, a table, and a hell hound oozed into the mire.

Unlike the others, Scabby’s otherworldly instincts kicked in immediately. He yanked the leash out of Vethamer’s shock-weakened grip and charged around the table--attempted to. His paws caught in the grasping ground. Fighting and snarling, he roared out a cone of flame.

Cards, chips, and the alcohol-stained tabletop went up in hellfire, but he couldn’t reach Mathal, yet.

She didn’t waste a precious second. Mathal snapped the fingers of one hand below the line of the burning table.

“Gotta go fast.”

Her body surged with magic.

Ostengo and Vethamer pointed at her and cursed her in unison. A line of magic shot from each of their fingertips and pierced her armored aura to explode into her skin.

But the four crossbow bolts from the four-tiefling crowd sailed by as though through an aerial quicksand.

Scabby broke free with a vicious growl. He charged, maw wide and flaming. He sailed, too.

She pivoted to the side. Her claws tore through his defenseless underbelly.

He hit the floor with a heart-rending whine.

A sharp whack from her witchlocks ended his suffering.

Ostengo and Vethamer screamed their curses.

She didn’t blame them, even as their magic missiles exploded inside her armor. Nine crossbow bolts flew in a crossfire over the burning table. She spat blood and weaved through, the quagmire carrying her feet to Vethamer’s side.

Her nails ripped them to shreds.

Ostengo screamed his spell and scrambled back. 

Her head jerked as the missile knocked a dark welt into her cheek. Neither it nor the viscous crossfire slowed her charge across the quagmire.

One claw swiped across his throat. He gurgled and splattered out a last, desperate blast of magic. It hit. She only gouged him harder. His back smacked the mire, eyes staring lifelessly in the crossfire-less air.

The door to the stairs creaked and slammed shut on the effectively empty church. 

Mathal cursed and whipped out her blackthorn wand. She gave herself a crackling charge. The final seconds on her hex wound down and the quagmire vanished without a trace. A single charge wasn’t enough, but her hastening spell would time out in six seconds, and Tarvi had no time at all.

She shoved the wand back and sprinted across the church into a flying kick. Her heel slammed into the door. It cracked, shuddered, but held. 

The haste petered out of her limbs. She swore. Tarvi would kill her if she wasn’t already dead.

“Sorry, I tried.”

She cracked her knuckles and conjured a swarm of flying teeth underneath the door. The screams started at once. 

The door burst open. Her nails were ready. A single swipe ended the screaming tiefling’s terror. Her witchlocks shoved the body into the tieflings behind. It bowled two back down the stairs and into the gnashing nightmare, but one sidestepped against the wall.

Mathal jumped down to their step and stabbed her nails into their windpipe. Four down. Nine tieflings, a bouncer, and a Hells-damned priest to go.


	6. Mathal, AWOL

Chapter 6: Mathal, AWOL

Mathal kept the swarm of flying teeth in the ten feet in front of her and stalked down the hall to the end of the curve. She sent the swarm underneath the door of the crypt for the last six seconds before it returned to whatever nightmare from whence she’d conjured it. Not a peep came from the room. Even despite the fact that the teeth automatically sought out the nearest flesh.

Looks like I’m blowing all my spells today. Might as well try that iron shell spell.

Ironskin.

“Thanks, Chelon,” she muttered under her breath.

She placed one hand over the coin in her chest. A circle of fractalling scales in deep, iron gray burst from the skin of her hand. The scales spiralled out to her fingertips and up her arm until they encased every inch of her in living armor.

“Oh, cool.”

She regretted not preparing another ironskin spell, but at least it would last for the next six, no, five minutes and fifty-four seconds. No time to waste, she kicked open the door.

Five tieflings cut and bled but stood their ground at the back and sides of the crypt. Each wrapped their arms around a pale, pulsating, and oozing maggot the size of a large dog.

Food.

They threw them at her.

“Eugh!”

She clawed one of the air-borne maggots in half and tore a chunk out of another, but the oversized grub was grossly resilient. Its spiny legs latched onto her scaly arm. 

Mathal grunted in disgust and grabbed it with her witchlocks. She slammed it to the floor. It exploded in her hair. She gagged.

Five crossbow bolts plinked harmlessly off her scales as did the two grubs thrown at her left leg, but the grub thrown at her right wrapped around. It reared its shiny black mandibles and crunched down through the iron to the skin.

“You. Die. First.”

Her witchlocks ripped the maggot off her right leg in two pieces. The tieflings fired. She kicked her left. The two, loosely grasping grubs lost their grip. They flew into the oncoming bolts which punched threw them like soft cheese.

The tieflings were next. She took down two with her nails and one with her maggoty hair. The last two ran through the north-facing door.

“No.”

She pointed down the dark corridor. A twenty cubic foot mass of web exploded out in front of them. They charged headlong into the sticky threads stronger than steel.

Three cones of flame roared out from in front of web blockade. hell hounds. The tieflings screamed. The combined hellfires melted the web at two and a half feet per second.

Mathal grit her teeth and hexed herself. Her muscle and bone ripped and stitched, broke and knit.

The flames reached the tieflings. So did the hell hounds. They bit their way through everything. The screaming stopped. The first ripped through, launching itself at her.

Mathal grinned askew. She caught the belly of the hell hound on her nails and flung it down dead. Her witchlocks pummelled the face of the second, knocking it aside but leaving her open to the charging third.

Her back smacked the mortared stone. The hell hound’s flaming maw closed down on her throat. She held her breath to keep from choking and drove the nails of one hand up through its chest. Its jaws loosed.

She shucked the body off her and rolled over into a pouncing hell hound. She couldn’t move fast enough, but she didn’t have to. Her witchlocks shot up under the hell hound as sharp as stakes. It whined like any dog. She put it down as fast as she could.

Mathal crawled up onto her hands and knees. She didn’t hear the padded steps until far too late. Thick, heavy claws latched into her hair. But instead of driving her headfirst into the wall, the bouncer dangled her off the ground.

“You hate dogs or something?” they laughed.

Mathal, the time.

Just a sec.

“First of all, how dare you.”

She spat in their face. Their smile turned savage. But they’d given her the time.

Her nails locked her around their arm. She braced and twisted her knee into the side of their ribs. Bone snapped. 

The bouncer howled in pain. Her witchlocks muffled their scream, wrapping around their head and neck. Bone snapped. 

The bouncer dropped. Mathal hit the ground running.

A nimbus of warm light spread from the opened door at the end of the hall. Its source was a single lamp on a paper-strewn desk against the wall. The remnants of a boozy brunch sat on a table at the center of the large room. Four tieflings stood on the far side of the brunch, crossbows drawn. Palaveen stood behind them. 

Two heavy chains had been spiked to the wall in the northwest corner. One latched to a collar around Tarvi’s neck, who sat on a bed, arms crossed. She glared at Mathal.

“What the actual Hell, Mathal? We’re partners. You don’t get to make the calls without consulting with me.”

“Indeed,” said Palaveen. “It seems there may have been a misunderstanding of sorts. But, since this is a first offense, we may still be able to work out an agreement, Miss Tarvi, if your associate--”

“Yeah, and on that note, did you really think I’d clinch the deal without consulting with you? Have you ever worked on a team?”

For the second time in twenty-four hours, Mathal’s guts curdled with shame. Her iron scales peeled back and diminished, shrinking her down to her hexed form.

“No. This is the first time.”

“Okay, well, rule number one: trust your partner. I’m willing to trust you. Can you trust me?”

“I--yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Chelon’s approval warmed her core.

“Ahem,” Palaveen cleared his throat. “Are we ready to proceed?”

“No. Tell her about the Bats, the Nocticulans, what it is you worship.”

He did, at extraneous length. The four tiefling guards let their crossbows rest on the brunch table. Mathal’s strengthening hex expired by the time he reached Nocticula’s particular domains. Tarvi swore in Infernal. He stopped in mid-rapturous ramble.

“I’m sorry, is there a problem?”

“Mathal?”

“Yeah?”

“Together?”

“Together.”

Tarvi stood up on the bed and flung her palm out toward the line of tieflings at the table across from her. A flurry of fist-sized hailstones hurtled out from her hand in a widening cone.

Mathal coiled into a crouch and flexed her fingers. Magic surged into legs and soles. She took a couple running steps and sprang high into the air. She vaulted over the table, the tieflings, and the deadly volley of ice, landing in front of Palaveen.

He cursed and vanished from sight, invisible.

Mathal struck out wildly but only swiped and grappled with the thin air. She also cursed, but in Aklo.

“I got it,” said Tarvi.

She snapped her fingers. A blast of arctic wind froze twenty square feet of floor from the wall opposite Mathal all the way underneath the table.

There was a curse followed by a muffled clank of armor on ice.

Mathal ran to the edge of the ice and opened her mouth. Spiders swarmed out in spiralling funnel that unfurled over the ice. They scuttled to the nearest moving thing and blanketed him as he scrambled to his slipping feet. Palaveen screamed.

“Your evil ends here,” said Tarvi.

She swept her hand upward. A giant stalagmite of ice lanced up from the ground under him, five feet wide at the base and tapering to ten feet tall. He sunk and slid lower under the weight of his own, poison-bloating body.

“What about the rest of the Nocticulans?”

“Already taken care of.”

“Next time, talk to me first. But good.”

Tarvi flumped down to a seat on the bed. She pulled a case of lockpicks from her backpack. The collar locked from behind her neck.

“Can I help you? Partner?”

“Um, yeah.”

Tarvi shot her a wavering smile. She didn’t let go of her thieves’s tools even after Mathal sat behind, which was fine--Mathal had her own--but also unusual.

“Uh, Tarvi, do we need to talk?”

“Mathal...what was your plan, exactly, for after we killed the Bats and sunk the deal? We can’t go back to the Orphanage for at least twenty-four hours...”

“We can’t...go back to the Orphanage.”

The collar clicked open and dropped to the bed. Its muffled thump resonated in the silent room. Tarvi faced her, glacier blue eyes blinking hard.

“How could Janiven betray us like this?”

The blinking was contagious.

“Even if she didn’t want the deal, House Drovenge did. She’s beholden to them just like the rest of us. And that’s...that’s why we can’t go back.”

The tears started pooling over, but Mathal couldn’t stop.

“We--I--I can’t work for someone who’d ally with [redacted Aklo] Nocticulans. Not even...after everything.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

They sat side-by-side hunched in silence on the edge of the bed until the little oil lamp on the desk began to flicker. The nimbus of warm light retreated back into the room and continued to shrink.

“How long has it been since you were on the streets?” asked Tarvi.

“Twelve years. You?”

“Seven. I was only fourteen.”

“I don’t know how old I was, but I still know how steal.”

“I don’t know about you, but I want to do this right. I’ve done a lot of things with the Orphanage. I never thought I’d be looking a new start in the face, but here we are.”

“Being a mercenary is the only thing I’ve ever done. Besides, we can’t survive--”

“We can try because we sure as Hell can’t go back to being mercenaries. There’s no place in the underworld you can hide from the Orphanage.”

True.

“True.”

The light had shrunk to a single, guttering circle around the desklamp. A cool draft blew in from the hall. The room went black.

“First things first,” said Mathal. “We need to get the coins out.”

It was time for a fresh start.


	7. Desertification

Chapter 7: Desertification

Tarvi and Mathal knocked the last of the brunch to the floor to clear a makeshift operating table. Mathal tossed her borrowed layers off onto the bed only for them to land beside layers already shed by Tarvi. Mathal shrugged. She wasn’t about to fight Tarvi to be the first to undergo amateur experimental surgery.

“Any last words?”

“Don’t let these be my last words,” Tarvi giggled nervously.

She set her belt between her teeth and laid flat on her back, fully exposing the hand-length scar just below her sternum. Mathal held her blackthorn wand between her own teeth and straddled the patient. She placed the tip of her middle finger and nail at the base of the scar.

“Show me the money,” she muttered around the wand.

Her magic flowed out in an arc and down the line of her arm to wash over Tarvi. The magic coin glowed pale yellow through her chest in the darkness of the room.

“Three, two, one--”

Mathal drove her nail down through the tissue to the thin edge of the coin in a single stab. Tarvi grunted and snorted through the belt, breaking into a cold sweat, but she kept as still as could be expected. 

Unfortunately, Mathal’s nail was not a cutting implement but a gouging one. She had to make two more precision stabs before the incision was large enough to fish out the coin. Tarvi screamed and sweat beads as large as marbles.

Mathal yanked the wand out of her mouth with her free hand and gave the patient two charges. Tarvi gurgled and spat out the belt. The gash stitched closed, adding an extra ugly layer over the original scar.

“There, done, it’s all over now.”

“Well,” she panted, “except that now it’s your turn.”

Mathal grimaced and spun the wand handle to Tarvi.

Tarvi held the blade of a magicked dagger an inch above the skin and braced her free hand against the table. On the count of three, the blade came down. Mathal spat out her belt, roaring in Aklo.

“It’s [redacted] cold!”

“Sorry,” she mouthed around the wand.

Tarvi slapped the coin into Mathal’s waiting palm. Her hand closed with enough force to have crushed gold, but the silver kept its shape and only bit a dent into the skin.

Tarvi touched the wand to Mathal’s temple, then jerked her hand back in a stream of Infernal curses. The wand went flying.

“It [redacted] zapped me!”

“Is this the first time you’ve cast a healing spell?”

“It’s stored.”

“Doesn’t matter. If you don’t know how to direct the magic, it’ll go any which way.”

She sat up, causing Tarvi to slide back, free and knife-arm flailing. A fresh spurt of blood trickled out from the fine cut.

No waste, Chelon approved.

“Just lemme see the wand. Please.”

Tarvi hopped off to look for it. It came flying up from under the table less than a minute later. 

Mathal caught the wand with a witchlock. She gave herself two charges, half for the cut and one-and-a-half for the previously sustained wounds. It didn’t completely heal her, but it was good enough for now.

\--/--

They looted the bodies for a little over three hundred gold each and left the undercroft, clothes reworn and coins in hand. They pitched the coins as hard as they could back down into the crypt. The silver bounced, rolled, and finally echoed to a stop. Mathal tapped her foot on the topmost step of the stairs.

“See ya.”

The magic rose inside her, but instead of surging out into the ground and unleashing a thirty-foot line of sheer seismic force, it splashed out of her in aimless sputters. The earth tremoring spell vanished from her aura as though cast.

Chelon, what just happened?

You took out your focus. It will take time. Do not depend on all spells to cast all the time.

Best guess, what’s my chance of spell failure right now?

One in three.

She cursed in Aklo.

“What? What’s going on?” asked Tarvi.

She thanked Chelon and broke the news to Tarvi, who had likely been similarly affected as a spellcaster herself. Tarvi repeated Mathal’s curse in Infernal, unwittingly.

“Ok, well, maybe seismic activity in such a concentrated spot would’ve given us away anyway,” said Tarvi.

“Whatever. We’ll just have to burn the top and the bottom floor.”

“The good news is they’ve got a kitchen.”

The better news was that they had bags and bags of sugar and flour. They spent a full hour dragging the lot to corner of the sanctum wall and crypt door. The powdered heap stood a foot over the mantle, sugar at the base and flour on top.

They armed themselves with two ten-pound bags each. Tarvi took the sanctuary and the rooms they hadn’t seen but which she’d memorized off the map. Mathal took the undercroft.

Back in Palaveen’s room, she dragged a nail across the coarse, knit fibers and ripped a tiny hole into the bag. She started pouring beside the body further from the door. She followed the line of the table to the corpse of Palaveen then curved by the desk to swipe the lamp and its flint. She tossed the empty bags into the room and went for more.

As she poured her lines of sugar, then flour, she made little connecting tributaries to the many tails left by Tarvi. By the time they met back up at the door of the church, they both smelled like the back of a candy shop pantry.

Mathal dropped one empty sack at the end of the line just below a grimy window. She wrapped the other around her arm and punched the glass. It shattered into the empty street. She left the second with the first.

Tarvi and Mathal closed the heavy carved door behind them and crossed over to the ruins on the other side of the street. They crouched down behind the base of the ruins, which had survived its inferno by virtue of being a three-foot wall of mortared stone.

Tarvi twisted a strip cut from one of her bags into a thin wick and set it in the last slick of oil in the lamp. Mathal wrapped a witchlock around the lamp. Tarvi struck the flint and steel. The wick sparked with a tiny flame. Mathal’s witchlock stretched the lamp nine feet across the street and tossed it the rest of the way through the broken window. Tarvi and Mathal stayed low and protected their heads, waiting.

The flour caught first. The church roared to life. And exploded in multiple deafening waves of heat, wood, and glass shrapnel. The blasts even snapped the blackened spires of the ruins on their side of the street. The earth shook not from seismic activity but the collapse of the heavy wooden beams that bore up the roof. Thousands of clay shingles shattered against the cobblestone. Razor sharp shards flew inches overhead and sank into the ruined wood with the beat of a torrential rain.

Only when the crashes of collapse grew less frequent did Tarvi and Mathal peek over the stone wall. The Temple of Bats and every building on the block had been engulfed by the flour and sugar inferno. 

Tarvi’s sooty hand met Mathal’s. She tugged her away from the blaze. They ran south through the ruins without a second look back.

\--/--

Tarvi and Mathal travelled as far south through the city of Westcrown as they could before dusk. With the threat of shadowbeasts in the darkness, they stopped at the nearest tavern, the Bruised Eel, a well-stained, reeking pile of planks whose many bed-rattling engagements could be heard from the street. The bar on the first floor was sullenly silent in comparison.

 

They slumped over a damp, sticky table in the corner. Mathal set Chelon, who’d un-merged from her aura during the walk, onto the driest spot she could find. Her entire body throbbed with a dull, bone-deep ache. Her muscles burned even with the effort of resting her chin in her hands. Tarvi appeared to be in a similar condition, massaging her eyeballs through the lids.

A three-foot tall gnome with teak wood skin and bright pink hair in two waxed, foot-long horns slapped a waxed rag onto the tabletop. A limited menu had been sketched out in charcoal.

“What can I getcha?”

“Coffee,” said Mathal. “Can I get that in a gallon?”

“One massive jug, got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah, the set of the day, thanks.”

“Do you wanna know what’s in that?”

“I’m guessing it’ll be more palatable if I don’t.”

“Good call. And for you?”

“I’ll have the--that’s a beehive, right?”

“Ha, yeah.”

“Great, thanks, then I’ll have the mead, just a mug. Is that little brick supposed to be chocolate?”

“Yep. We ran out of real bricks.”

“Right,” laughed Tarvi. “I’ll get a chocolate bar and the daily set as well.”

They sat in silence until the gnome returned with their food and all through the meal. Neither could look at the other until they’d emptied the last dish. Tarvi only focused her gaze long enough to give Mathal a nod before staring back into the distance. Mathal raised a hand toward the gnome bobbing up and down behind the bar. Chelon’s little head gently butted her free hand. She rubbed his shell first absently, then gratefully.

“That’ll be eight gold, unless you want this separately?”

Mathal and Tarvi put down four gold each, Palaveen’s treat. Before the barkeep left, Mathal asked them about rent. According to Yakopulio, she/her, a night’s stay and three much plainer but equally square meals a day cost two-and-a-half gold per person. It was an honest rate, and one at which they would run out of coin in two months.

“Find an honest job in two months--that sounds doable,” said Tarvi.

Yakopulio, passing their table with a tray of drinks as tall as her hair, laughed.

“Ha, sure, sex work or begging--take your pick.”

The prospects were daunting.

“Yeah, no, I’m not gonna think about it until tomorrow,” said Mathal.

Instead, she tromped up the stairs with Chelon on her shoulder. Her room consisted of a narrow bed, a faded quilt, and a squat set of drawers. But there was a door and even a window overlooking the outdoor bathroom behind the tavern.

It was a far cry from the nest of lice and bed bugs called the poorhouse. That was truly the end of the line, the inescapable sinkhole where the prospectless poor went to starve and die. Mathal had promised herself she’d never go back, but now she’d also promised Tarvi that she wouldn’t turn to crime.

She set Chelon on the drawers and flung herself face-first onto the quilt, making a sooty angel.

“I’m not that honest, Chelon. Don’t tell Tarvi.”

She drifted to sleep in minutes to the rocking of the bed in the next room.


	8. Prospectors

Chapter 8: Prospectors

It turned out that looking for a job was a full-time job, and there simply weren’t enough hours in the day especially with the streets overrun by the shadowbeast ‘guard.’ Days turned to weeks. When weeks turned to a month, Tarvi and Mathal gave up their personal space to save money and moved into the same room. In the second month, they started skipping meals, which didn’t help them squeeze into their narrow, shared bed but did help them squeeze into a third month at the Bruised Eel.

Chelon chewed the edge of a wilted leaf on the cleanest square of their usual corner table. Mathal sat across from Tarvi with a single, sludgy bowl of breakfast stew between them. They said nothing because there was nothing to say. They would be out of coin at the end of the week.

Mathal was the first to break the skin of the stew. She couldn’t taste anything but continued to eat automatically. Tarvi stirred the surface. She raised her spoon, but it swung down in her strengthless grip and dripped viscous drops back into the bowl.

Yakopulio came over with her moldy cleaning rag and a nearly transparent, ink-smudged flyer. Thankfully, she put the flyer on the table.

“Listen, normally I’d never recommend this to anyone, but I know you guys are getting short in the change.”

“What is it?” asked Tarvi.

“Why don’t you recommend it?” asked Mathal.

“Have you heard of a murderplay before?”

They hadn’t.

A murderplay was a performance in which the actors put themselves at risk of actual murder for the entertainment of the wealthy. While none of the victims had made it out alive to date, their deaths weren’t guaranteed. With a five percent payout from ticket sales at prices aimed at the gentry, anyone who survived a single performance stood to make--

“A lot,” said Yakopulio, “more than enough to lock down room and board here for years. Well, if you can hold your own.”

“I’m down to fight them to death,” said Mathal.

Chelon stopped chewing to give her a look of less disapproving than concerned.

“How is this not a crime?” asked Tarvi.

“Money makes the rules,” shrugged Yakopulio.

“I’m gonna need to think about it.”

“It’s up to you guys, but hot tip from the herald: this is the last call for ‘actors.’ If they can’t find anyone by today, this Nonon’s taking her show to the capital.”

“Tarvi? Double or nothing?”

“Just gimme a sec to pretend like I have a choice.”

Mathal hid her grin by deforming it with a heaping spoonful of stew.

\--/--

With the map on the flyer and more colloquial, helpful directions from Yakopulio, Tarvi and Mathal made their way to the wealthiest district in the city either of them had ever entered. The villas, public parks, and art exhibits each behind their gates were so finely crafted that both were surprised when a day guard contingent of dottari only gave them a dirty look in passing.

They only stopped for a moment outside of the Limehouse. The theater stood as tall as any of the three-story villas on columns in the shape of masked players each displaying a different emotion. The walls had been cut from limestone and painted a shade of lime green in a flat but harmless visual pun.

Mathal dragged one of the heavy, red-lacquered doors open without a single squeak from the hinges.

“After you.”

“Mathal?”

“Yeah?”

“If this audition is for poor dupes who’re gonna kill each other, I’m out.”

“If Yakopulio was on point about this payout, I should make enough to buy us both the time to get real jobs. Maybe even get out of Westcrown.”

“That...that would nice.”

They followed the lime-painted arrows outside the empty ticket booths and concession stands to the back row of a velvet-curtained auditorium so large an airy to appear twice as empty despite the occupants clearly visible and audible in the front row.

“Vesta, Millech, I need you to catch me because I’m about to faint from my sheer, seething rage at this city of philistines,” said the one who could only be the director Nonon herself.

Nonon was a short, stout middle-aged woman whose flashing gray eyes and graying blonde hair recalled the heritage of the conquering Taldans rather than either the Chelish or Kellids. She fainted in the arms of a hunched but muscular senior citizen with sand-colored skin, green demi monolid eyes, and a balding head of stringy white hair as well as in the arms of the most beautiful Varisian immigrant Mathal had ever seen. Nonon’s right-side supporter stood as tall as Mathal but appeared even more athletic. They had deep olive brown skin, a wave of steel-gray curls, and a face as sharp and angular as chipped flint.

Even Chelon warmed to them at once.

“Hi,” said Mathal.

“We’re here about the casting call,” said Tarvi.

Nonon popped one eye open.

“Praise the Archfiend! And that makes three.”

A Chelaxian sitting a ways behind Nonon about the same age as Tarvi and Mathal with the typical black hair, black hair, and pale skin, raised a hand and gave them a close-lipped smile in greeting.

“Hey, I’m Gorvio, a genderfluid he/him.”

Tarvi and Mathal made their introductions. Nonon’s supporters first righted the director before introducing themselves.

“Tarvi, Mathal, nice to meet you. I’m Vesta, she/her, cleric of Asmodeus. I’ll be taking care of the healing as well as a few of the magical stage effects.”

“Millech, he/him.”

“Millech is our stage ninja,” said Nonon. “I, of course, am the great Nonon, she/her, director and patron of the arts extraordinaire. Unfortunately, this production will never get off the ground unless we have at least four of you, but preferably six.”

“I could--” started Millech.  
Nonon cut him off with a flourish.

“Absolutely not. You’re the only competent stagehand in this god-forsaken city.”

The doors at the back of the auditorium opened as though on cue. Mathal and her inner turtle both stared in shock as none other than half-elf Moris, markedly dirtier and more flea-bitten than they’d last seen him, descended the aisle stairs. He spotted her halfway down the aisle. He screamed.

“Oh, hi Moris.”

He screamed louder.

“Silana?”

“What? No. Sorry. I, uh, mistook you for this other Moris who looks exactly like you. But not as pale.”

Nonon applauded. She hustled up to Moris and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Wonderful! That was wonderful! I could truly feel your emotion. Use that.”

She pointed at Mathal.

“You. You’re going to need some work.”

After all the introductions had been made, Nonon had the three of them sit beside Gorvio, who had the decency not to wrinkle his nose at their combined, unwashed stink. Nonon paced between them and the stage excitedly and stopped with an echoing clap.

“Well, four will suffice. I’ll have to spend all night making uncouth revisions to the source material like some sort of author of fanfiction, but it shall be done. So, which one of you is auditioning for the part of Larazod?”  
The silence stretched on for a nearly a full minute before the smile fell from Nonon’s face.

“Larazod? The lead of the Six Trials of Larazod? Have any of you actually read the script?”

Nonon only allowed the next silence to stretch on for half as long.

“Vesta, Millech.”

Vesta caught her while Millech passed out copies of the script in thin, ink-smudged booklets.

“Everyone will just have to try out for each of the four principal roles,” said Nonon, eyes shut in Vesta’s powerful arms, “and I’ll simply have to sort you out from there. Take ten minutes and memorize Larazod’s line on page fifty-seven.”

Tarvi flipped through the booklet with her magical chant of ‘remember, remember.’ Mathal did her best, but the words vanished from her mind the minute that she stepped onto the stage.

“Larazod knows no lies, great...Great. He--I speak no lies.”

“Next!” shouted Nonon.

Moris and Gorvio fared little better. Moris managed to put some feeling into the first few lines but faltered halfway through the soliloquy. Gorvio ad-libbed the entire thing. Tarvi recited it word for word--Mathal following along in her booklet.

“Well, that is what he said. Let’s just move along to Dentris. He’s a sharp-tongued wit of a wizard with a knack for biting insults. So. Each of you will give me your most burning roast of myself. Tarvi, let’s start with you.”

“Oh, Hells. Um, you don’t look like a director.”

“Well, I suppose we’ve gotten the worst out the way first. Moris.”

“You kind of scare me.”

“And I stand corrected. Mathal.”

“Stop insulting my friends or I’ll correct your face with my fist.”

“That’s not a roast so much as a threat. Next!”

“You’re the philistine.”

Nonon stared at Gorvio, slack-jawed. She threw down her pen and notepad with an incredulous scoff, and then shook herself with a second, incredulous scoff. She stalked off to the other side of the stage. Millech went after her.

“Uh, sorry,” Gorvio called out between his hands.

Vesta only snorted with laughter. Cutely, Mathal noted.

Nonon and Millech returned almost thirty minutes later, Millech hauling a small oxcart of rocks behind him.

“Time for Tybain. Traditionally, his actor ends up succumbing first, so the longer they can survive, the better. Take ten minutes and turn to page fifty-five.”

Millech pelted them with stones while they stood on stage, which didn’t make it any easier to recall their lines. Mathal gave up reciting all together, simply closing her eyes and bracing herself. Millech pelted her straight in the chest.

“Stop! Stop!” said Vesta.

“Cut!” said Nonon.

Millech stopped. Vesta ran up onto the stage and laid a hand on Mathal’s shoulder. Warm, healing magic without any of the static pop of her wand spread to her bruised chest.

“Thanks,” said Mathal.

“Yeah, thank me now, but get on the defensive during the real thing because I won’t be able to get to you until it’s all over. And that’s if any of you are still kicking by then.”

That was news, but it did explain why the play had fatalities despite a backstage healer.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a wand.”

“Not during the play you won’t,” said Nonon. “You’re free to use all the physical might you want, but there can’t be any spells except from our masters of effects. It would simply destroy the audience’s undoubtedly strained suspension of disbelief. It’s all about integrity, you see. Integrity is the soul of art.”

Mathal was in no position to question anyone’s integrity.

“Says the director of a murderplay,” said Gorvio.

“Now that was a perfectly acceptable burn. You keep that up. Shall we move on to Drovalid then? Good. He’s a torturer who has a change of heart thanks to the integrity of Larazod and the uncompromised loyalty of his companions.”

“Wait. Is Drovalid gonna be fighting the other characters?” asked Mathal.

“Most certainly not. Would everyone please read the script when you get home tonight?”

Mathal, Moris, and Gorvio gave some half-hearted, even noncommittal, suggestions of assent.

Millech went backstage and climbed into the rafters without a sound to fetch a ‘flying monster.’ Mathal squeezed past the others to tangle with this monster first.

“Magistrate Maleficarum, I--”

Metal flashed in the corner of her eye. A sandbag the size of a small dog swung down from the rafters in a metal bucket at concussive speed.

Mathal roared. She struck out with one palm. Her nails gouged deep. The bag tore top from bottom in an explosion of red sand that rained down on her and colored the lights red at her feet.

The bucket clattered against the polished floorboards and rolled for several seconds to a stop.

“I...forgot my line. Whatever. Millech! Don’t swing so fast next time!”

“A little slower will do,” Nonon called up after her.

Fortunately, the stage ninja heeded his director and the others escaped without concussions although Gorvio received a contusion and Vesta’s attention.

At the audition’s end, Nonon had them line up between the front row and the edge of the stage. She held color-coded script booklets in her hands, blue, red, green, and yellow. She handed Tarvi the blue booklet.

“Congratulations, you’re our Larazod.”

Gorvio received Dentris’s red booklet. Moris received Tybain’s green. Mathal received the torturer’s yellow.

“Be here at dawn for rehearsals every day starting tomorrow. Our grand performance is the end of this week and, I’m going to be honest, I’ve never screened a worse audition in my entire career. Bring your A-game.”

Mathal’s eyes met Tarvi’s. They were in. The two threw up their arms and hugged with a whoop.


	9. Crash Coursing

Chapter 9: Crash Coursing

Tarvi, Mathal, Moris, and Gorvio arrived at the Limehouse in the early hours of the morning to find three nobles in the typical heavy velvet, frothy lace, and glaring shinies already on stage. Nonon clapped her hands and introduced their more well-to-do castmates.

“This is Calseinica Nymmis, she/her, who’ll be performing with you in the trenches as Ilsandra, Larazod’s love interest.”

The petite Chelish woman smiled warmly and curtsied with the grace of a dancer.

“Please, call me Calseinica. I’ve been told the roles of greatest danger bring the greatest glory, so please take care of me.”

Nonon moved on to one of two nobles with Taldan heritage, the first tan, grim-faced, and somewhere in their late thirties.

“This is Umberto Ulvauno, he/him, our great antagonist, the conniving lawyer Montigny Haanderthan.”

“I will be addressed as Councilman Haanderthan and nothing less.”

He jabbed a white-gloved finger at Tarvi then drew it across his neck like the edge of a white-gloved knife.

Mathal stepped in front of Tarvi, who stared at him aghast.

“Woah, no. Inappropriate.”

Chelon glared daggers from her shoulder as she’d failed merging spell.

“My dear, Ulvauno is what we in thespian circles call a method actor,” said the second, Taldan-heritage noble, a short and very heavy-set blond who’d caked enough makeup on their face to obscure both their age and any defining features. “So long as their stain upon the acting world produces divisive performances and outright scandal, we will never be rid of their ilk. As for me, I’m Delour Aulamaxa, she/her, an honest talent.”

“Indeed, thank you,” said Nonon. “Delour will be our chorus and narrator. Now, I trust you’ve all read your scripts because I’ll be working with the established talent today. You will go with Millech and Vesta to be fitted for your costumes. Practice while you’re waiting.”

They did no such thing. Vesta insisted that they went to the staff only washroom for a bath, and Millech outright refused to measure them until they did. Tarvi, Mathal, and Moris, who hadn’t been able to afford a bath for over a month, took their time in their sudsy wooden tubs. Gorvio did as well despite being much cleaner. Moris fell asleep in his, prompting Tarvi to reach other and cast a spell of water breathing on him to prevent any pre-performance fatalities.

It was well into mid-morning by the time that they left the bathing tubs. Vesta and Millech took Tarvi and Moris for fitting first. Mathal and Gorvio waited in the Limehouse’s green room, a soft-furnitured lounge painted an almost garish lime green.

Gorvio removed his boots and laid down on one of the heavy, padded sofas and held his red booklet up at arm’s length. Mathal set Chelon on the dark, hardwood coffee table and sat on the sofa opposite Gorvio’s. She opened her script with her dialog indicated in yellow. After stumbling through her first lines a few times, she took a pen from the centerpiece stationary set and began crossing out words.

By the time that Tarvi and Millech returned three hours later, Mathal’s booklet was more red than yellow. Gorvio’s laid over his face, the pages rustling with his deep, slumbering breaths.

Vesta shook her head even as half her mouth curved in an amused smile.

“Mathal, follow me, please.”

She took Mathal without Chelon to a closet the size of a room lined floor to ceiling with costumes on racks, shoes on shelves, and hats on sculpted but faceless busts. A nose-tickling odor of white powder spread from a large vanity at the back to permeate the entire room. Mathal stepped onto a black X in front of the mirror.

“You can keep your undergarments, but everything else has to go.”

Mathal flung her sweat-stained, sweat-stained layers onto the floor for the second time in twenty-four hours. Vesta pulled out a tape measure and started from the top with the circumference of her skull. Her fingers were dry and cool.

“What are you smiling about?” asked Vesta, not unkindly and inches from her face.

“Nothing much. On an unrelated note, you seem really nice. And beautiful.”

“I’ve also chosen a life of celibacy,” Vesta chuckled, raising a red metal pentagram at the end of her rosary.

“Same here.”

“Really? Are you part of the church here?”

“I’ve been trying to stay away from religions recently.”

“Well, then I’ll keep the proselytizing down to a minimum.”

The measuring only took half an hour. The true time sink of the fitting was the makeup test. For the next two hours, Vesta applied, removed, and reapplied makeup to make Mathal’s features pop while being true to the torturer who had a change of heart. Vesta settled on a gray monochrome.

She crouched down beside Mathal and caught her eye in the vanity mirror.

“How does it look?”

“Finally, everyone can see how tired I am.”

“Honestly, I think that’s the real reason Drovalid changes sides. A career torturer? Ignoring all that pain has got to be a drain. Maybe he’s inspired, maybe. Maybe it’s just a long overdue relief.”

“Not exactly an inspiring hero.”

“Funny, I think quite the opposite. Who isn’t tired?”

Everyone was by the time that Vesta and Millech finally released Mathal and Gorvio, faces scrubbed. With less than an hour of daylight remaining, Nonon dismissed them all for the night.

Moris raised a hand.

“Would you mind if I just slept here?”

“In the Limehouse?” Nonon scoffed incredulously. “There’s no food! No heat! No beds!”

“It would mean Moris would be here bright and early for practice,” said Tarvi. “Before dawn, even.”

“Indeed! Well, would anyone else like to suffer for their art like a true artist?”

“It’s funny you mention that, seeing as I’m needed at the Courthouse tonight for that very same reason,” said Ulvauno.

“I’ll stay with you,” said Calseinica, taking his hand. “I’ve always wanted to try a lock-in--it’ll be like we’re very unfortunate robbers.”

“Pass,” said Mathal, Gorvio, and Delour.

Tarvi followed them out of the theater with a little wave behind her back.

\--/--

The heavy velvet curtains of darkest lime rose and parted to reveal Ulvauno in a white, powdered wig and black court regalia looming above the kneeling forms of Tarvi, Moris, and Gorvio, all of whom were in their daily wear.

Calseinica, draped in yesterday’s silk, beads, and bangles stood at stage right. Delour stood beside her dressed in an entirely different set of finery than yesterday’s, the only similarity being that her face remained obscured.

At stage left, a hulking devil summoned at Vesta’s call from Hell itself grasped a spiked truncheon in his red, leathery hands. A spotlight opened over him angled by Millech in the rafters, the ash-tipped tentacles of the beard below his lipless, human-toothed maw writhed.

“Order in the Tribunal!” he hissed in lilting Infernal that echoed through the theater. “Order in the Tribunal. The Court of His Honor Paraduke Montigny Haanderthan, Black Tongue of Asmodeus, Magistrate Maleficarum, now holds session. All rise.”

“Cut! Cut!” Nonon shouted through a magicked loudspeaker. “Where the devil is Mathal?”

She leaned out past the devil bailiff’s elbow, script booklet in hand.

“No! No! No! When I say right, that’s stage right!” 

She jogged over to Calseinica and Delour’s side to find a white square on the floor empty except for a white X. That made a lot more sense.

“Imps. I’m working with imps. Places everyone. Millech, the curtains, if you please.”

After the bailiff’s call to order, a second spotlight opened over Ulvauno, the beam so thin and precise that it left him as much in shadow as it did light.

“Be seated, members of the Court,” he boomed in grand, authoritative Common. “Today this court seeks truth, or at least shadows thereof, from one Larazod Rilsane, member of a once gloried house, of recent fallen in Asmodeus’s regard. The accused stands on several counts of failed conspiracy, evidenced thereof by the industrious interrogations of the court’s own Seeker, Drovalid Vorclune.”

A third light beamed over Mathal, now in place to receive it.

“Service to Asmodeus’s ever-darkening glory...is never without risk of menace, betrayal, and threat of doom.”

The light and shadow turned Ulvauno’s smirk to the ghastly, jawless grin of a skull that remained only for a moment. The whole stage bloomed into light, fading his look from monstrous to human.

“You hereby stand accused, Larazod, along with your ill-seeming compatriots, of conspiracy to undertake grievous harm to the institution of this tribunal, namely myself, Paraduke Montigny Haanderthan. How answer thee these charges, Larazod of House Rilsane? Speak! And know that lies are my closest friends. They’ll betray you before I. Speak the truth or do worse than die!”

After several seconds of silence, Tarvi elbowed Gorvio beside her. Nonon clapped her hand and loudspeaker over her face.

“Sorry, long night,” said Gorvio. “Larazod, m’boy, don’t say anything until a real lawyer gets here.”

“CUT! Gorvio, what the [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] are you doing?”

“Ad-lib. It’s all the rage at the taverns--”

“You have a script! Read the [redacted] script!”

Nonon roared to the ceiling-ed heavens and stalked down the front row aisle. She stopped halfway and hustled back to her seat.

“Fine, let’s just move on. Tybain, line.”

“He wants precious golden-yoked truth? Give him more than he can choke down,” said Moris. “Let him that judges false be judged by wraiths—smote by his own brand shall he fall.”

Nonon pumped her fist and nodded the players onward. Soon enough, Calseinica and Delour were giving Mathal nods of their own. She allowed herself a single shudder to release her nerves, but her gut remained nodded as she walked to the white X downstage.

“Good Keeper of Pain, Tormentor of Liars and Demonsuckling Miscreants, we are honored by your presence,” said Ulvauno with a bow and a flourish. “Show these supplicants the favor of your stinging lash, and with rack and fire, purge lies from their lips.”

“Magistrate Maleficarum, I come before you a simple...a simple...”

She checked her booklet, but she’d marked out all the words save for the very last line.

“I shall begin our first trial.”

“CUT! Did you forget how to read?”

She almost wished that she had or at least shredded the pages for Chelon’s litter.

“It was too much to remember, so I marked out some of the lines.”

“Oh for the love of--give me your script.”

Nonon’s face darkened to red then a deep purple over the pages. Three acts in, she slammed the booklet shut, roaring. She ripped it word from word and cast the shreds into the air. They fell slowly, white and red, as she huffed from exertion.

“Is. This. What you think of our art?”

“No! I just--it’s too much for me to remember in four days.”

“Three days--there’s a full dress rehearsal before the performance, with a paying audience, mind you, so you had better start [redacted] applying yourself! I’d rather shutdown the whole thing than have one of my players be seen reading on stage!”

“Can we go back a sec,” said Tarvi. “If someone dies during the dress rehearsal--”

“No, no, no. The tortures are far too dangerous even to practice during these dry reads. You’ll only see them on the day of the actual performance. Now, can we continue or shall I expire here in my seat?”

Tarvi shuffled over on her knees and passed her blue booklet to Mathal.

“Thanks.”

Chelon gave her an encouraging radiance.

“Magister Maleficarum--”


	10. Break out the Menagerie

Chapter 10: Break out the Menagerie

Mathal tried. She really tried. She studied her lines from the end of rehearsals until Chelon finally convinced her to go to bed around one or two in the morning. Her booklet became heavier with the weight of candle wax, crumbs, and the bugs unwittingly squished after they’d crawled in to eat the crumbs. But by the morning of the dress rehearsal, it didn’t matter. She knew the play by heart, forwards though not back. At the end of their practice, Nonon burst into tears of joy.

The Limehouse filled quickly as four o’clock approached. An unintelligible clamor closer to the roar of the ocean than voices and commotion rose and continued to rise from the other side of the curtain. Ulvauno, dressed in the gloves, robes, and wig he’d been wearing all week, laid across the top of the first set piece, a high-backed obsidian bench. The devil bailiff sat beside his dangling arm but paid it no mind, his noseless nasal cavities buried in a brimstone-reeking newspaper held by the tentacles of his beard.

Vesta remained in the changing room, retouching Delour, Calseinica, and Gorvio’s makeup. Moris, already finished, stood in his white prisoner’s shift over the buffet table in the green room, stuffing his backpack.

“Is that allowed?” asked Tarvi.

Mathal, in her bicep-baring executioner’s black, dropped her backpack at the other end of the table. She tossed sturdy fruit and hard-crusted rolls through its mouth, setting one roll on top of the food mountain on Tarvi’s plate.

“Gotta be--it’s for us and there’s no way we’d finish it all.”

Millech popped his head through the doorway. Everyone froze.

“Save some for charity.”

“We are charity,” Mathal retorted.

Chelon’s little head nodded with agreement from her shoulder. Millech shook his.

“Just be backstage in five.”

Mathal and Moris hastened their harvesting.

In five minutes, everyone gathered before Nonon. She shouted over the sound crashing through the curtain:

“You are artists. Make good art. Ignore the rabble of the unwashed masses. They are our discounted patrons tonight. If they throw something, take it and move on. Anything less than them starting a fire is not cause to stop the performance.”

Mathal barely registered over the clamor like violence in her ears, one she couldn’t fight back.

“Mathal, are you okay?” Tarvi shouted over the din. “You look a little pale.”

“It’s the makeup.”

Mathal excused herself to the bathroom. She locked the stall door without a single glance in the mirror and hunched over the toilet, thankfully flushable, and vomited. Her hands shook where they gripped the bowl and left a sweaty print. She spat out the taste of bile with a curse. She’d never remember her lines like this.

Mathal placed a hand on the inside of her left forearm. Faint white scratchings in Aklo appeared word by word as she scrolled her finger across the surface of her skin. When she ran out of room, she switched to her right arm.

“Just in case,” she whispered to Chelon.

She gave his shell a reassuring rub and left him on the green room coffee table with a little plate of vegetables.

At the rise of the curtain, the crowd hushed but never fell entirely silent. Fortunately, the executioner’s lines didn’t start until the second scene, but when Delour’s inter-scene song drew to a close, Mathal’s gut curdled on its own. The crowd’s chattering picked up as though they wanted her to hear their tongues and teeth. She twisted the prop whip between her hands as though wringing its neck.

“Magistrate Maleficarum, I come before you a simple hand whose lash is guided by the greater glory of Asmodeus. With your permission I shall...I shall begin our first trial.”

Ulvauno waved a white-gloved hand at her permissively.

“Begin at your leisure, Tormentor. End this fool’s mockery of our court with cleansing agony.”

Millech supplied the thunderous crack of Mathal’s whip. Blood packs burst under Tarvi’s shift at Vesta’s arcane trigger. The crowd whistled and roared their approval.

“My good master may be a fool of a tiefling,” Gorvio recited, “but if you think to wrack his spine and wheedle recantation, you are even greater fools than he. He faced Abyssal Tyrants. His coal-black soul did not quake then. He stands resolute now.”

“Recant half-half--” Mathal glanced at her whipping arm between strokes. “Recant half-breed! Admit your...twisted falsehoods!”

Blood packs burst to a chorus of booing.

“Even an ocean of agony cannot turn truth to lie,” Tarvi shouted over them and Mathal, who’d begun speaking too soon.

“Recant and--recant and end this trial! Swift...”

Something soft and wet smacked and burst against Mathal’s bent head as she checked her line. She plucked a ripe tomato skin from her hair. She crushed it to pulp in her fist.

“Death shall embrace…,” Tarvi whispered over her shoulder.

A wilted cabbage smacked Tarvi in the back. Every remaining blood pack burst in a curtain-splattering explosion of false gore. The crowd whooped and hollered up to their feet.

Mathal threw her arms over her head, reading willy-nilly.

“My work is done. Larazod must speak the truth.”

Moris looked around in confusion and hastily delivered his only line.

“Ha…? Even in the face of soul-crushing pain, he taunts this ridiculous Magistrate of Hell?”

The crowd only slung more produce onto the stage.

Ulvauno marched downstage and grabbed Mathal by the lapels.

“Fool! Continue the trial! You’ve yet to probe deep enough into his lies!”

He let her go with an overly real shake. She staggered back. Her heel slipped in an exploded peach. She yelped and hit the stage butt-first.

The crowd roared with deafening laughter. The produce rained down.

Mathal roared back. She leapt to her feet and snatched a flying corncob from the air.

“Keep throwing! We’ll feast for days!”

For the first time since the play had started, the audience fell completely silent, but Mathal’s own blood continued to pound in her ears. A voice at the back of the crowd spoke up.

“You like that, do ya? Well, then. Mates. Unleash the farm!”

At the back of the theater, clucking chickens and bleating goats rose up from the seats held aloft in the arms of the audience. Ulvauno, Delour, and Calseinica gaped in unadulterated horror as the animals crowd-surfed to the edge of the stage. As soon as their hooves and feet made contact, they ran for the nearest produce. 

Ulvauno and Calseinica screamed.

“I’m out,” said Delour. 

She turned her back on them all and left the stage.

Moris broke form as well, gathering up what intact produce he could before the animals got to it. Gorvio snorted and scratched the nearest goat between the ears.

Mathal helped Tarvi to her feet.

“Sorry. I really messed up.”

This had to be coming out of her cut if not all of theirs.

“It’s...it’s done. Just...help me grab a couple chickens in case we all get dropped.”

Mathal went to work immediately, wiping her eyes on her magically marked forearms.

\--/--

By the time that Millech’s shock wore off enough to let him bring down the curtain, Mathal and Tarvi had gathered three chickens each. They brought them to the green room, and Mathal returned Chelon to her shoulder for safekeeping. As they left to gather more remains of the day, they nearly bumped into Nonon backed by the trio of noble actors in the doorway. Delour appeared resigned, Calseinica still mildly spooked, and Ulvauno personally offended. Nonon sported a tight, brittle smile.

“Mathal, a word if you please.”

Nonon hooked her arm through Mathal’s and marched her back into the green room where the chickens now clucked softly and attacked the buffet table. The door shut behind them.

“Mathal, you’re a nice, scary individual.”

Chelon radiated her own befuddlement.

“Thanks?”

“In fact, we’ve come to the conclusion that you could scare someone without a word. So. Tomorrow evening, you’re not to say a word.”

“I--”

“Not. A. Word.”

Nonon’s teeth chattered with excess feeling. Mathal closed her own mouth and nodded.

“I’ll amend the others’s scripts to account for our executioner’s newfound silence. There will be a mandatory lock-in so we can memorize the new scripts. You, of course, are exempt, so I advise you to take your chickens and leave.”

“If everyone’s going to be here, I’d rather--”

“Leave.”

Mathal did as commanded, roping a goat along with her to barter with Yako in exchange for boarding the chickens. 

No memorization stood between her and her sleep that night, and she even had the whole bed to herself, but she couldn’t close her eyes without hearing herself shout at the jeering crowd and the subsequent squawks of half a farm. It would’ve been funny if everyone else hadn’t suffered for it.

“Ugh.”

Mathal turned over and groaned into her pillow.


	11. Curtains Up

Chapter 11: Curtains Up

Mathal and her inner turtle arrived at the Limehouse a quarter after dawn to find everyone and their setpieces outside of the theater. Millech loaded the setpieces into a donkey-led wagon while Nonon supervised. Vesta flitted from actor to fully costumed actor, hastily retouching their makeup. Ulvauno spotted Mathal first and his eyes narrowed under Vesta’s brush.

“Here comes the traitor. Congratulations, Drovalid. Neither I nor the entire legal system of Westcrown has ever been more inconvenienced in our entire lives.”

“I’m sorry--everyone, not just you.”

Tarvi shrugged in her impeccably cleaned prisoner’s shift.

“The show is going on and that’s all that really matters.”

“No. No!” said Ulvauno. “Once the morning heralds spread word of last night’s performance, we’ll cease to be actors. We’ll be a laughingstock!”

Everyone fell silent at the sudden break in character.

“They are rumors until confirmed,” said Nonon. “So. If you want to continue your thespian lives, make tonight’s live torture performance the greatest murderplay Westcrown has ever seen.”

“Huzzah!” said Calseinica, throwing her hands into the air.

Ulvauno’s painted mouth curved into its ghastly grin, aimed straight at Mathal. Vesta rolled her eyes as she gave his wig a final powdered dust. Millech helped the Asmodean cleric into the wagon. While Mathal and Delour waited to board, Delour whispered a nearly soundless ‘watch out’ over Mathal’s shoulder. Mathal never got the chance to ask for more information. Vesta immediately went to work on her costume, hair, and makeup.

Nonon paraded the others behind the wagon in a fully costumed procession, riding one of the donkeys herself. Everyone and their mother stopped and stared as they extraneously wound their way west. No one threw any flowers, but neither did they throw any more garden produce. It was well into mid-morning by the time that they reached the city ferry on the east bank of the River Adivian.

“That is why I refuse to walk,” said Delour.

The ferry brought them to the island at the heart of the river, Parego Regicona, manor district of the nobility. The Nightshade Theater overlooked the river from the top of a thirty-foot cliff. It had been constructed in the image of an iron and stone cathedral to a nameless evil deity. Inside, the soft lighting and thick red carpets only emphasized the leering faces and tormented souls that decorated the walls in murals and carvings.

“Cheery,” said Gorvio.

Nonon ignored him and led all the actors to the green room. The catering service had provided a buffet to fit the venue--mouth-wateringly fragrant and gravity-defying delicacies that would never survive a short jog in a backpack. Nonon shepherded everyone into a group circle before she lost anyone to the table.

“I’ll make this quick. Congratulations, my players. We’ve made it to our moment for crowning glory. For some of you, this may be your final performance. To all of you I say, thank you for your sacrifice on the altar of our finest of arts. We’ll run through in an hour. Until then, the table is yours.”

The actors attacked the buffet with the gusto of those who’d been locked in a theater for twelve hours without food because their only food source had been contaminated by a small flock of chickens.

\--/--

The dark red enchanted curtains of the Nightshade rose like blood flowing upwards. Unlike at the Limehouse, the audience watched from the darkness in silent expectation. Their energy prickled Mathal’s skin and buzzed in her ears. Her mind went blank, but when she took the whip in her sweaty palms, her body remembered what to do. She broke every blood pack under Tarvi’s shift. Then she heaved and threw down the whip. With every other character remarking on her behavior, every member of the audience had honed their attention on the silent, traitorous executioner by the time the curtain flowed back down.

Ulvauno shoved her shoulder as he stalked to his position for the third scene.

_ Watch out,  _ said Chelon.

“No, he did it on purpose,” she muttered under Delour’s aria.

_ I know. _

The devil bailiff entered the courtroom bearing four vials and four thin, curved knives sharpened for surgical precision in the tentacles of his beard. He handed one of each to the three prisoners and Mathal.

“It is said,” Ulvauno barked over her shoulder, “that a liar’s pain is easy to bear, but pleasure steals truth from even the most well-tended fortress.”

He strode forward and grabbed the vial from her hand, which curled into a fist.

“Here before you are the Flukes of Asmodeus. Their bite is more pleasurable than the caress of a thousand succubi, which you’ve no doubt tasted, you treacherous, Abyss-loving fool. Their soul-shuddering wanderings end in your skull, where they plant their young who will consume and leave you an empty husk. Who shall be the first to die in ecstasy?”

The prisoners looked at each other in silence. 

Mathal stepped forward. She should’ve had her vial, but Ulvauno had taken hers instead of Tarvi’s. She walked right up to him and snatched it back. She tossed the cork over her shoulder and brought the mouth of the vial down on her forearm. The fluke, a long, tape-thin rot grub, burrowed into her skin.

“What courage,” breathed Tarvi, a new line.

Tarvi grabbed Mathal’s arm and drew it toward her. She brandished her knife, the blade flashing between her horns, and brought it down with a practiced slash. The rot grub landed at the edge of the stage, flecking the audience with blood. They gasped but not in horror.

Tarvi dug her blade into the cork of her own vial and dug it out with a pop. She emptied the vial onto her shoulder.

Mathal secured Tarvi around the waist and dipped her at the front of the stage. She brought her own knife down and sliced the grub from Tarvi’s neck in a single stroke. It flew into the front row, eliciting a giddy scream.

“Oh, to be that fluke!” cried Calseinica.

Gorvio raised his shift over his knee and applied the fluke to the side of his thigh.

“Oh! It has been so long!”

Moris cut into him once and missed, wincing. He cut into him again.

“Sweet, aching ecstasy,” Gorvio hissed between his clenched teeth.

Tarvi and Mathal exchanged a look. Tarvi ran over and nudged Moris aside. She sliced the grub from Gorvio’s neck.

“Between you and a dream of three succubi is a hard choice, Larazod, but somehow your sweet countenance won out.”

“My turn, I suppose,” said Moris.

Mathal stood behind his shoulder as he applied the fluke. She cut it out immediately.

“Oh. Ah. I know not this feeling.”

Ulvauno stamped the grub to paste under his heel.

“Curse your persistence.” 

He wiped the snarl off his face and smoothed down his wig.

“All lies eventually reveal their ugly fangs. I shall draw them as venom from a wound.”

The devil bailiff returned again for the next scene, this time bearing four crimson eggs in his beard. Tarvi held her egg up to the light.

“What means this strange egg?”

Ulvauno gave his ghastliest grin.

“The eggs burrow deep and hatch in your insides, churning your guts to paste. When these devils have been sated, they tear their way free as devil-lings bearing your own faces and filled with your every hate. Recant now or give birth and face to your abominations.”

“Do your worst!” shouted Calseinica from the stands.

Tarvi threw her head back and laughed to the heavens.

“I gulp this egg down before this court and our dark lord’s very eyes.”

Gorvio waved the bailiff over.

“Well. Give me mine. Not much good it shall avail you.”

“I like eggs,” said Moris, “red, white, or otherwise. Hand me mine! I’ll eat it raw!”

Mathal received hers last. She shrugged and popped the whole thing in with the rest of them to instant regret.

During rehearsals, they’d practiced this scene with deviled eggs. The crimson egg went down like a rock of ground eggshell and solid paprika. The four of them doubled over and vomited uncontrollably. The egg, having magically dissolved the instant it reached their gut, came up as a steaming, roiling mass of crimson ooze.

_ Yummy,  _ Chelon blasphemed.

A faint red ring around an Asmodean pentagram shimmered in the pool of goo at Mathal’s feet. A wave of devil flesh gushed forth, six feet into the air. Amid the dripping fat wriggled half-formed limbs and a face of hollows.

Mathal’s nails tore through the devil like batter, its lardy clumps flinging out into the crowd. Gorvio bludgeoned his devil with a quarterstaff while Moris cut his into two oozing slabs, but without her magic, Tarvi’s dagger left only the shallowest cut on her devil. Its flesh folded over the wound. It reared up and clawed into her arm.

Before Mathal could reach her end of the line, four more pentacles shimmered in the ooze. Four more devils roiled up from the pools. 

Mathal hastily bit back a curse and turned her back on her devil. Moris and Gorvio’s devils swiped at her as she charged at the two gouging through Tarvi’s unarmored shift. She ducked and rolled under their blobby limbs. When her feet touched down, she sprang at Tarvi’s first, nails ripping through tallow.

Together, Tarvi and Mathal drove their blade and claws into the second. Tarvi stepped away from the pool and patted down the blood and sweat with the end of her shift. Mathal stepped toward the pool. As a third devil surged up, she gouged her claws down. The lardy flesh piled up behind her nails and fell off in oozing clumps.

Moris and Gorvio stood back to back in a circle of three oozing devils. Tarvi jerked her chin at Mathal, her eyes on Moris. They ran, Tarvi upstage and Mathal down. Mathal sprang at the downmost devil with a wordless roar. She drove her nails through its middle, tearing into halves above and below her as her momentum carried her through.

Gorvio bludgeoned into the next devil’s head.

Without breaking speed, Mathal pivoted on her heel. She swung one claw with the full force of her turn into the devil’s neck. Its head tore from its body and spun into the squealing crowd with a lardy splatter. The body hit the stage behind her with a smack, fallen to its side. A second, final smack followed from upstage. Red tallow dripped down the length of Mathal’s arm.

The audience roared to the feet with thunderous applause. The curtain barely muffled their continuing ovations and only heightened their excitement.

Tarvi dropped onto Mathal with a weary hug.

“Thanks for saving my butt.”

_ You are a friend,  _ said Chelon despite her inability to hear him.

The curtain rose with the spotlight on Ulvauno. The shadows deepened the furrows of his brow to twisting gashes.

“How can this be? Three trials broken, and still they prevail. Asmodeus...smiles upon them? Does the Dark Lord truly know of my compact with the Abyss?”

There were gasps from the audience.

“It cannot be, or I am utterly undone. True or nay, I must try to the last.”

He turned to the four on centerstage.

“Your vile benefactors have thus far warded off justice’s dark hand, but let us see if you hold steadfast before the promise of oblivion.”

“More?” groaned Gorvio. “My old heart gives out. Go on without me, master.”

He swooned into Tarvi’s arms.

“No foolish talk, old man. Haven’t you claimed immortality a thousand times to any bent ear?”

She set him back on his feet.

“Your task is not yet done.”

“You’re already looking more lively now,” said Moris.

From Tarvi’s other side, Mathal held out her hand. Tarvi grasped it.

“I’m...honored.”

Ulvauno rolled his eyes.

“How touching.”

“Nay!” cried Calseinica, “What shuddering courage.”

She and Ulvauno ran off the stage as the curtains along the back of the stage parted and flowed to either side. A thick cloud of brimstone rolled down across the stage. A squelching sound followed underfoot. Tarvi, Moris, and Gorvio gagged and sunk to their ankles in sulphur-belching swamp. But the quagmire went solid under Mathal’s soles.

The swampgrounds shook and stopped. Shook and stopped. Out from the thick brimstone fog lumbered two, ten-foot skeletons. The fog billowed through and out from the holes of their tusked, reptilian skulls. The quagmire sucked the bones of their toes down into its pungent slough.

Mathal grinned in her three-quarter turn. They were slow. She didn’t wait.

She launched up from the solid swamp and drove her nails into the thick bone of the nearest skeleton’s thigh. One heavy claw raked through the flimsy costume and into her back. She cried out. The second arm came down. Her nails stabbed into its bony palm. She twisted her grip and ripped the arm from its socket. It smacked and sunk into the quagmire.

The skeleton recoiled with a soundless roar, but the swamp held its feet fast. It tipped backward.

Mathal sprang off its thigh and buried her own claw into its jaw with a vicious uppercut. The bone shattered. Skeleton and dislocated skull broke the surface of the swamp with a mighty smack. The quagmire sucked the bones down.

The second skeleton backed the others to the edge of the stage. One claw came down over Tarvi, but Gorvio held it off with his staff, grunting with exertion. The second claw came down. Mathal’s nails caught it by the palm.

It screamed a silent roar into their faces, jaws rearing for a body-splitting bite.

“Kiyah!” Moris screamed back.

His curved sword snapped the upper and lower jaws in a single strike.

The necromantic magic animating the bones gushed out from the skeleton’s many wounds, blasting the four with the smell of the grave. The skeleton collapsed in a heap of bones that thunked into the swamp.

The four breathed hard. One by one, Tarvi, Gorvio, Moris, and Mathal turned back to the breathless audience. 

The crowd went wild.

The four blood-soaked players couldn’t enjoy their ovations. Two trials remained.


	12. Enter the Beast

Chapter 12: Enter the Beast

The curtains opened on the bloodied players on solid stage once more. The two skeletons had vanished as Millech had carted them backstage to whatever giant coffin from which they’d risen.

“Such horrors,” said Gorvio. “What next?”

“Hold true, old man,” said Tarvi.

“Easy for you to say! Youth laughs at death as a stranger. As you grow older you come to know it well.”

“So shall you all,” said Ulvauno, striding downstage with a venomous smile. “Here follows the Trial in the Belly of the Beast, a gift to this court by Moloch, General of Hell. The Beast, infernal thing, makes its stomach the nest of acid-spewing serpents. It will swallow you whole and wash clean your bones.”

“Where is the ‘trial’ in this?” Gorvio gaped.

“If you are innocent,” said Calseinica, descending from the opposite corner, “then the Beast’s belly will leave you unscathed.”

“Hold fast, my dear friends,” said Tarvi. “Have faith in Asmodeus.”

“But I do not,” Moris squeaked.

“Perhaps you shall learn to swim,” said Ulvauno. “This next trial demands a great sacrifice.” 

Ulvauno flung his white-gloved finger at Calseinica.

“Ye, who speaks for the half-breed, the lone traitor on the council who defends Larazod, you must brave this trial alongside him.”

“Gladly!” she laughed, “For he speaks the truth.”

Calseinica threw down her jewelry and tore the fine dress from her shoulders. She wore a white prisoner’s shift beneath. She shrugged defiantly at Ulvauno and embraced Tarvi with a fiery kiss.

The crowd clapped and cheered their approval.

“Know the gifts of Asmodeus, dear Larazod. But soft, what terror approaches?”

Millech, dressed in stage ninja black, wheeled a huge frame of iron and polished wood onto the stage. The trappings wrapped around an equally huge serpent sculpture of thick but transparent green glass. Its mouth gaped wide enough to swallow them whole, but the head stood ten feet off the ground. The belly, easily large enough to hold all five of them, sloshed with a clear liquid.

Millech cranked a handle on the serpent’s backside. The neck lowered to the stage. Out from the maw wafted the nose-cauterizing fumes of cleaning fluid.

Calseinica tripped lightly toward the maw, but Mathal shouldered past her and climbed in first. Her feet slipped on the smooth, wet glass. She slid on her butt into the pool of burning acid. Mathal sprang up with a yelp distorted by the glass and acid to a tinny echo. 

Calseinica slid down after her, laughter sloughing off into a scream on the way down. She tried to scramble back up the neck, but her hands couldn’t find a hold. Moris crashed into her. They both went down into the acid and came up sputtering and screaming--eyes, noses, and mouths bright red and leaking.

Mathal hooked them both around the waists and yanked them away from the neck before incoming Tarvi knocked them down again. Gorvio followed with a yelp. Millech cranked the neck back up to its full ten feet, trapping the fumes inside with them. Everyone coughed.

“Get me out!” cried Calseinica, flailing in Mathal’s grasp.

The swelling thickened her voice and kept her eyes from opening.

“I can’t boost you that high,” said Gorvio between coughs. “You’ll literally have to stand on my shoulders. Then drop to the stage. Good luck not breaking a leg.”

“Let’s please just get the Hell out of here,” said Tarvi.

Gorvio held his breath and squatted down into the acid. Tarvi sat on his shoulders, holding her arms out to either side of the throat for balance. She wobbled as he stood up but didn’t fall. She braced one hand on his collarbone and pulled one foot up onto his shoulder. Then the other. She stood gingerly, keeping her guiding hand on the glass.

“I’m up! Gonna jump.”

Gorvio nodded vigorously but said nothing.

Tarvi bent her knees and launched herself into the maw. Her belly smacked down on the tilted glass. She slid back.

“No, no, no, no!”

Gorvio caught her feet. He jumped up and pushed her back. Tarvi tumbled out of the mouth. She hit the ground rolling. She came up on all fours and gave the others a weary thumbs up from the other side of the glass.

Gorvio burst into a fit of coughing but beckoned at Mathal to let the next one go. She let go of Moris.

“Calseinica should go,” said Moris, thickly.

Chelon agreed.

Mathal considered it. Calseinica’s flailings had grown noticeably weaker, and she’d swapped the screaming for coughing. If she fainted and fell into the acid, that would be the end of her line and waste everyone else’s air. But standing around also wasted air.

Mathal let her go. She and Moris guided Calseinica to Gorvio and helped her onto his shoulders. They kept her legs braced when he stood up and it was her turn to stand. She could barely stay up with both hands out for balance on the glass, much less jump. 

Moris coughed and nodded at Mathal. They shoved Calseinica up by the legs. She wheezed out a hoarse shriek and tumbled out of the mouth. Her ankle snapped under her. Her voice gave out halfway through her scream. Tarvi held her and pulled her out from under the mouth.

Moris tumbled out next. He stuck the landing. The audience roared with applause.

Gorvio and Mathal, both coughing and hacking, looked at each other. Gorvio fainted.

Chelon screamed with the pure, primal fear of being eaten alive. Mathal moved instinctively and caught Gorvio before he splashed into the acid. She threw him over her shoulder. Then screamed herself.

Black blurred in the corner of her eye. Ulvauno. He perched on the edge of the final setpiece with his chin in his hands. His smirk oozed a satisfaction more nauseating than anything inside the Beast’s belly.

Her patience died with a snap of bone and stitch of flesh. Mathal hexed herself. She slammed the tip of her elbow into the glass. A shallow web of cracks splintered into the glass. She kept slamming, leaving bloody smears. On the other side, Moris drew his curved blade and swung it against the serpent with a bone-ringing bang.

Her elbow went numb. She roared and rammed her heel into the web of deepening cracks. The acrid fumes went straight to throat. Her vision blurred. She staggered back, choking.

“Kiyah!”

At the familiar scream, she turned her back to the cracks and dropped Gorvio down into her arms. She wrapped them around his head. 

The glass exploded into the belly of the Beast. Shrapnel sunk and sliced into her wounded back. Mathal cried out into Gorvio’s shoulder where the glass couldn’t shoot down her throat. The air barely burned her raw throat. She came up gasping and blinking off tears.

Moris stood on the other side of the jagged glass ulcer beside Tarvi, Calseinica draped over her shoulder. He held his arms out for Gorvio. Mathal handed off her KOed cargo and clambered out onto the stage. He caught her, too. Tarvi squeezed her bloodied hand.

She never heard the audience until after the fallen curtain already muffled their crashing waves of ovation.

Millech dragged the acid-trailing serpent backstage. He returned with two folding chairs under one arm and the handle of the final setpiece in the other. Tarvi helped Calseinica into one chair and Moris arranged Gorvio into the other. Each stood beside their companion in front of the gleaming black judge’s bench. Mathal took her place between Tarvi and Moris. As the curtain flowed upward, each of them took one of her hands.

Ulvauno rose up from behind the bench.

“The final trial is at hand! Your souls shall be quenched at long last.”

“This trial has been yours, Magistrate Maleficarum,” said Tarvi, “but Asmodeus is the only true judge here. Bow before him.”

“Insolent dog! Asmodeus shall scour you with his flame until your bones turn to ash and your souls melt waxen under his taloned feet.”

Flames burst up from the back of the stage. Ulvauno screamed with the audience and ran cowering out from the judge’s bench. Delour, wreathed in glamoured flame, levitated up from behind it to stand atop it. She wore the Archfiend’s face in a red-lacquered mask with her hair twisted and waxed into thick, red horns.

The devil bailiff walked out from the other side of the bench, his arms draped with curling contracts penned in crimson blood.

“Choose,” boomed Delour. “A true heart shall beat strong for all eternity at my side. A false one burns to cinder in an instant.”

The bailiff handed each of them a contract, tucking Gorvio’s under the Chelaxian’s arm. Ulvauno grasped his. It flashed with flame and crumbled to ash between his white-gloved fingers. He shrieked in blood-curdling fear.

Delour flung her flame-tipped finger at Ulvauno.

“O magistrate who lords false justice over true souls…,” her mask’s mouth curved into the ghastliest and uncanniest grin of them all. “Your soul shall burn for all eternity.”

A trapdoor opened under Ulvauno’s feet. He dropped without a sound, all sucked to oblivion. Glamoured flames roared up from the hole.

Delour levitated into the air above the bench with her final dirge of an aria. The flames only grew higher. They spread from the mouth of Hell to consume the entire stage. The four conscious players, unharmed, took a bow. Though Mathal couldn’t be certain with Delour’s booming dirge and the explosion of applause, she thought she caught the strain of tears coming from below the stage. Flowers rained at their feet. They’d piled up to their ankles by the time the curtains dropped.

Vesta ran out to them with healing in her fingers. She tended to Calseinica and Gorvio first, casting from both hands. Calseinica burst into tears and clung to Tarvi, nearly pulling her into her lap. Tarvi took the seat and reassuringly rubbed her back. 

Gorvio woke from his chair with a jerk.

“Is it over or are we in Hell?” he asked, eyes on the still-flaming Delour.

Moris patted his shoulder and slumped down the backside of his chair.

“It’s over, thank the Dark.”

Vesta saved Mathal for last. She held up both hands and waggled her fingers.

“Hey Survivor, do you want a kiss with this?”

“I--yeah, go for it,” she said, linking fingers.

Vesta stepped into her. Her magic closed Mathal’s wounds and dulled her aches, but her cinnamon chapstick left Mathal’s mouth tingling.

Nonon came backstage flanked by three Taldan-descended nobles, blinged out, furred, and feathered from head to toe. Vesta bowed. Delour dropped into a curtsy. Calseinica tore herself away from Tarvi long enough to do the same.

“Players assemble!” said Nonon. “We’re in the company of true patrons of the arts.”

“No, no,” said the tall, heavy-set blond, making a portrait frame with thick fingers in front of one blue eye. “What a great scene here. Beautiful!”

Their finger-frame zeroed in on Moris. The other two, slim, auburn-haired, and amber-eyed twins, tittered politely.

“Players, this is our very own Lord-Mayor of Westcrown, Aberian Arvanxi himself.”

Nonon introduced the players before any of them could say a word. The mayor bent down to extend a hand to Moris.

“Yeah, good to meet you. Moris.”

He shook Moris’s arm with both hands yet somehow managed to work a hug in with the pumping. It took all of Chelon’s reason to keep Mathal from kicking his lord-mayor-liness in the face.

“And this--”

“My name is Chammady, she/her,” said the twin with the feathered ruff. “It’s an honor to meet you. This is my brother, Eccardian.”

The twin with the furred ruff gave them a winking salute.

“I was certain I’d regret coming to see a murderplay, but you’ve made it worth my while and spared my conscience while you were at it. For that, you have my thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” said Moris.

He scooted back and stood closer to Mathal and Vesta. 

Arvanxi dusted off his gold-plated kneepads and lumbered up to his full six feet and change.

“I’d like to formally invite you all to a celebratory week of feasting at my place, the lord-mayor’s manor.”

“I’m pretty sure some of us have nothing to wear,” said Tarvi.

“Perfect!” laughed Arvanxi.

Everyone cringed. The lord-mayor laughed several more times before lamely assuring everyone that he was joking.

“Just come in your costumes. You can be real, authentic actors.”

“A great honor,” said Gorvio with more than a little dryness.

“We’ll give it some serious consideration,” said Tarvi.

“You do that. Welp, I’ve got an orgy waiting for me. See you fine players tomorrow evening at six.”

He sleazed out a wink and sauntered off. Chammady and Eccardian shared another cringe behind his back. They left with a finger-waggling wave and resignedly followed after their lord-mayor. Everyone breathed easier.

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening,” said Mathal. “I’m just gonna take my cut and get back to our chickens.”

“Maybe we could grab something off the buffet for Yako,” said Tarvi.

Nonon held up her hands. Mathal, Tarvi, Moris, and Gorvio froze.

“What?”

“It’s going to take me about a week to do all of the accounting. I’m a director, not a secretary, and all of our expenses--”

Mathal stalked right up into Nonon’s face. 

“We need that money.”

Tarvi pulled her back.

“Nonon, tonight is our last paid night at the tavern. We’ll be out on the street if we can’t pay up tomorrow morning.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience, but--”

“I’m not going back to the poorhouse!”

Nonon yelped and nearly fell into Ulvauno, having finally come up from below the stage. One side of his mouth curved into a weak smirk at the sight of Moris and Tarvi restraining Mathal.

“You don’t have to,” said Moris. “None of us do.”

“That’s right,” said Tarvi. “We can just wait out the week at Arvanxi’s.”

“What?” said Ulvauno.

Tarvi smirked back at him as she explained.

Just the thought of going to  _ his _ place made Mathal nauseasus. Chelon shared the sentiment, but no amount of threatening could speed up Nonon’s accounting. She allowed herself a single, violent shudder of unadulterated disgust.


	13. Enter the Lair

 

Chapter 13: Enter the Lair

Mathal woke at six. She sat gingerly, careful not to disturb Tarvi gently snoring on three-fourths of the pillow, and extended her tangled witchlocks to the floor. Thus braced, she leapt lightly from the bed and lowered herself to the cold, wooden floor. 

Chelon’s beady black eyes reflected the rosy light from the window. He crawled out from his warm nest of rags under the bed while Mathal began a chalk circle. She closed it once he’d stepped inside and set her fingertips on either side of his carapace with a tiny clack.

He had new spells for her, or she had new spells for herself, if his turtle understanding was true. Two were variations of spells she already knew--one setting her nails with magicked metal and the other manipulating her web to catch the air and hold its shape. The first of the truly new spells conjured a coat of living wasps. The second allowed her to take the shape of the arthropods she liked to beck and call, but with her unreliable casting, she could only see it creating more problems than it solved.

She cursed in Aklo and set her spells for the day, ruefully going without the spell of vermin shape. Once the glyphs had all vanished into her mouth, she held Chelon’s four little feet to her chest. He stepped into her aura without merging.

“I guess you’re crashing a party tonight.”

Eviction was at ten, so Tarvi and Mathal went down to the bar at nine for a last sit at their favorite corner. A tray-laden Yako came over and set down two bowls of stew paired with a single wilted leaf on a plate.

“Just eat it. This one’s on me.”

Neither Tarvi nor Mathal could look at each other, tearing up as they were.

“Thanks,” said Mathal.

“Thanks, Yako.”

“Can we leave the chickens with you? Just till the end of the week.”

“That’s six free eggs every other day-ish. Absolutely.”

They left with all their non-animal belongings bundled up with their nearly unwearable costumes inside the small travelling packs provided by the Orphanage. Despite their complete and utter lack of money, their recent baths and grooming meant they could go anywhere without a dress code and no one would turn them away. It was refreshing and almost alien to hold their heads high to the morning breeze over Westcrown’s longest canal. 

They crossed over to the central island by Bladewing Bridge, so called for the winged horses motif carved into its red and black sides. The pegasi had swords in place of feathers, an artist’s liberty which had likely been approved by the barest of margins solely due to its tenuous connection to the island’s own name, Rego Laina, the Blade Sector.

The smiths and historical battlegrounds were of less interest to them than the Miratanza, the Floating Market. Out on the water, vendors hawked their wares from colorful tents on anchored platforms and brightly sailed barges. Guards of the condottari casually patrolled the artificial island of boats and walks, barely sparing Tarvi and Mathal a glance.

By late afternoon, they’d only browsed through about half of the foreign and domestic wares, but they’d soon need a place to change into their costumes and head to Arvanxi’s. They asked directions from a halfling in the velvet and lace livery of a noble’s house slave and learned that the southern manor was quietly known as Aberian’s Folly.

“I don’t want to know why,” said Mathal.

“I’m sure we’ll find out whether we like it or not.”

A single command pierced through the haggling clamor.

“Stop right there, Kellid.”

Several pairs of heavy, armored boots clanked against the wood. The shadows of spiked armor consumed their own. Chelon’s head retracted into his shell.

The milling crowds of customers boxed them in. They couldn’t run and they couldn’t fight--not in broad daylight for the entire market to see, much less experience via collateral damage. Mathal affected a friendly face.

“Hi.”

A tall Hellknight followed by four others in less decorated armor drew their visor above a pair of piercing black eyes.

“Have I seen you before?”

Two had gotten away from the iron carriage break. They’d been on horses at the time, obscuring their height, and fully armored, obscuring their faces. This Chelaxian could’ve been either of them.

“We were in a play,” said Tarvi.

“Yeah. The dress rehearsal was crap. Maybe you threw a tomato at my face?”

Much to her surprise, the Hellknight’s pale face went bright red, and they backed out of her own. Even Chelon peeked out curiously from his shell.

“ _ The Trials _ , yeah, I saw that. But I’d never--you were bad, but not that bad.”

“Thanks.”

“I--yeah.”

“So...are we free to get out of here before the shadows start creeping in?”

“Yeah, sure. Where are you headed? We’ll escort you.”

“We need somewhere to change,” said Tarvi. “Then we’re off to Arvanxi’s manor.”

They snorted.

“Aberian’s Folly, yeah, we’ll get you there. We’re garrisoned at Taranik House. It’s not that far and you change there, but we’d have to leave now.”

Tarvi and Mathal shrugged and followed Paralictor Gonville Chard, leader of the Order of the Rack’s local presence, back to their headquarters. The walk to the requisitioned mansion took longer than the changing. The sky darkened with storm clouds as they left. The Hellknights, true to their word, had them before the wrought iron gates in the pouring rain with five minutes to spare. Tarvi and Mathal held their backpacks over their heads.

“Sorry. Should’ve brought an umbrella,” said Chard from the dryness of their waterproof helm.

"Whatever. Thanks for the escort,” said Mathal.

“Sure. Uh, will you two be performing again sometime?”

“Not if we can help it,” said Tarvi. “So, if you want some autographs, now’s the time to ask.”

The Hellknights left with Tarvi and Mathal’s signatures magickally inscribed on the inside of their shields. 

A final, straggling carriage pulled through the gates in front of them and clopped down the walkway of dark gray stones, mirror-like in the rain. It stopped under the rusting gargoyles of a spiked gable some forty feet off the ground. Iron gutters wrapped around the ochre and black walls flushing pools of cold rainwater onto the streets below. Bright lights burned in every iron-gated window while two dozen chimneys funnelled sooty gray smoke into the already darkened sky.

“I’d almost prefer the streets,” said Tarvi.

Mathal felt the same, but she could also feel the eyes from the gathering shadows on them. They had sixty seconds before their status dropped from citizen to viable target. She held out her hand. The gates closed behind them.

Cringing slaves in rain-soaked livery rushed them through the doors of a long hall under the dour, painted eyes of past mayors. The hall emptied into a lush but severely trimmed and topiary-ed garden open to a midnight sky. Tarvi stopped on the wooden bridge to take in the artificial stars, but Mathal was distracted by a shadow flitting imp-like at the corner of the sky. It vanished whenever she looked directly at it.

“Well, we can’t have that,” said a low, husky voice that filled the air with hair-raising magic.

The water evaporated from their bodies and clothes. Tarvi, Mathal, and Chelon looked across the bridge. Their looks lengthened to stares. An older, more muscular, and shorter-haired Mathal stood in high-ranking servant’s livery on the other side.

The funhouse doppelganger blinked rapidly, recovering first.

“Another of the brood,” they said in Aklo. “How could I not welcome a younger sibling?”

They bowed with a face-splitting grin and switched into Common.

“Well met, honored guests. I am Crosael, he/him, our esteemed lord-mayor’s majordomo.”

Tarvi had to introduce them both. Mathal’s entire body had gone cold as though Crosael had returned the rain. Every millisecond she spent taking in his words and their relation only made her angrier.

“--I was Larazod and Mathal was Drovalid.”

“How can you work for that walking pus nugget?” she finally asked in Aklo.

“I focus on the salary and the benefits.”

“You’re a disgrace.”

“I’m surprised to hear that from someone desperate enough to be the victim of a murderplay. I suggest you take a good hard look in a mirror before casting your curses.”

“I  _ am  _ looking in a mirror, and it’s making me regret swearing off killing.”

“With an inferiority complex like that...you must be the runt,” he laughed.

“Are we telling jokes?” asked Tarvi. “Because I’m getting some weird, not-joking vibes, and I’d just like to be on the same page here. Also, I’m really hungry.”

“My apologies. I’ve been quite remiss in my annunciatory duties. Please, follow me.”

The doors on Crosael’s end of the garden opened into an immense chamber lit by multiple crystal chandeliers and heated by six, iron-grated fireplaces. The walls danced with landscapes depicting Westcrown if relocated into the fires of Hell itself. At the center of the echoing, marble floor was an H-shaped table with only two empty seats remaining.

Moris waved at them from his seat between Arvanxi and Chammady. Gorvio waved at them from between Chammady and Eccardian. Nonon, Calseinica, and Delour waved from the opposite end of the H, seated between complete, noble strangers.

Crosael introduced them by name and character before guiding them to the seats across from Moris and Gorvio. The shining array of cutlery on either side of Mathal’s plate left her baffled, particularly the delicate-barbed short spear on a slender thread, but she recognized the blood-red alcohol in her silver goblet as wine. Unfortunately, Crosael’s presence in the corner completely killed her appetite.

Every hour, a grandfather clock in the northeast corner tolled and opened, releasing a herd of unicorns equal to the hour chased back into the clock by an equal-numbered swarm of devils. Arvanxi’s liveried halfling slaves entered and left with them, bearing silver platters overhead.

The first course was a plate of beef marrow fritters, boiled side of axebeak, loach flavored with spices and sage, eels in jelly, and smoked fillet of giant gar set in jellied aspic. The second was a roast peacock, thick broth with salty strips of worg flank, fresh chuul soup served with Chelish black bread, and a roast dire boar carried in whole hog on the backs of twelve slaves. The third course was honey-roasted hogfish, venison, sturgeon, and lampreys in hot sauce. In addition, fruits and breads, olives, jars of pickles, stuffed peppers, figs, dates and honeycombs were placed around the main dishes like a garnish made from the contents of an entire pantry.

At that third course, Tarvi, Moris, and Gorvio joined Mathal in not-partaking. Somehow, the nobles continued to eat. A fourth course followed, one of whole roast baby squid served with honey  sauce, minted lamb with fresh vegetables, sauced hatchling alligator, tureens of cod spawn in garlic, and leveret stewed in wine and parsley. The fifth course explained the spears. Live serpents gorged on drugged mice flopped under the silver lids. The four one-time actors simply lowered their lids back down while the nobles engaged in a drunken, pseudo-hunt.

The final course was less food and more substance. The platters contained pungent tobaccos, a rainbow-hued array of liquors, and several small metal cases of indistinguishable white powders. Tarvi, Mathal, Chelon, and Moris watched in stupefied horror as the nobles partook and then stripped. 

Gorvio simply up and left through the doors to the garden. Everyone, even Crosael, was far too bodily distracted to stop him--the single highlight of the night. Tarvi, Mathal, and Moris, seeing his success, followed after him.


	14. Enter the Secret Lair

Chapter 14: Enter the Secret Lair

The three clattered up onto the bridge. Gorvio stopped and faced them from the far side.

“Guys, it was great seeing you all, but you can’t follow me.”

“Where are you going?” asked Mathal.

“To whatever accommodations Arvanxi’s providing for his week-long guests.”

“A bed sounds incredible,” said Moris.

“Yeah, all that food made me really sleepy,” said Tarvi.

A bed to herself, a room to herself, was everything Mathal wanted. But Chelon tilted his little head. He didn’t buy it.

A slave in the main hall seemed to recognize their intentions and silently beckoned them to a iron-railed flight of dark oak stairs. They led the four to the west-windowed section of the second floor, entirely devoted to guests. Their bedrooms clustered at the south end, beyond an empty ballroom, baths, and a gallery of painted scenes from recent murderplays. The iron plaque of an empty frame read: ‘ _ The Six Trials of Larazod. _ ’

Tarvi and Moris went off to the baths, but Mathal and Gorvio went straight to their rooms. A softly crackling fireplace and two crystal torches lit Mathal’s. She waved her hand in front of a torch. It remained lit. She flicked the iron sconce, nail clacking against metal. It continued to glow. Only touching the base of the sconce could turn it off and on again.

“Ley lines, right.”

Unlike the magic torches, the fireplace burned wood. Its only curious feature was a short muslin cloth that hung from the center of its mantle. She unhooked the cloth from a pair of iron horns over the face of a grinning devil. That was uncommon modesty from a man who’d whipped off his pants at a dinner party. She flicked the devil’s face.

Flames exploded up from the fireplace. The rush of heat threw Mathal back from the mantle. Chelon went flying. Her witchlocks dove after him, snatching him inches off the rug and hardwood.

“What the [redacted]!”

Unless the fireplaces were rigged to kill the guests, that was not how ley line magic worked. There should’ve been control, steely, precision control.

The fireplace inferno died down to a reasonable flame, burning by magic rather than the logs it had reduced to ash, but Mathal had already left the room. She banged on Gorvio’s door and shouted through the wood.

“Don’t touch the devil face!”

“What devil face?”

Mathal burst fully-clothed through the curtains of the ceramic-tiled bathing chamber. One of four large, square tubs set into the floor frothed with bubbles. Tarvi sat inside behind Moris, working his hair into a lathered mass. Their laughter died from the expression on Mathal’s face.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Tarvi.

She explained the situation with the fireplace.

“And, possibly unrelated, but Chelon thinks Gorvio’s up to something.”

“We could just ask him,” said Moris.

“No, Chelon’s right,” said Tarvi. “He didn’t want us following him to the individual guest rooms? Weird. He just didn’t want us following him.”

“I’ve got an idea. Finish your bath and meet me in my room.”

Mathal stopped between the curtains.

“Is that water heated? Magically?”

Apparently so. Tarvi and Moris clambered out immediately. No boiling geyser erupted from the tub, but they stuck to the engraved buckets and porcelain basins in the corner.

Mathal kneeled on the rug in her room with Chelon in front of her and the silent fire to her back. She’d set a scouting spell in her aura on the off chance that she and Tarvi needed to learn the manor’s floorplan for a quick exit, but she’d only prepared two of them. If both failed, she’d have to wait until she and Chelon had sufficient rest to perform the spell-setting ritual again.

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, raising both arms out in front of her.

“Come on, come on.”

The spell peeled off her aura and vanished into the ether. She cursed in Aklo and tried again. Her aura flared pale yellow up around her.

Tiny beads separated from her aura and hung suspended in the air all around her. They pinched, twisted and darkened into little rounded bodies shorter than the width of a fingernail. Six fine, spindly legs and two twitching antennae unfolded from the bodies, rendering them indistinguishable from a colony of ants. They dropped with a hair-ruffling whoosh.

The door opened with a muffled scream, Tarvi and Moris clapping their hands over their mouths.

“Is anyone behind you?”

They shook their heads.

“Crawl, my pretties.”

Her scouts scrambled out the doorway between Tarvi and Moris’s hopping and dancing steps and scattered into the hall. They climbed up walls, under doors, and over anything unfortunate enough to have been relegated to a corner.

“Now what?” asked Moris.

Mathal set Chelon onto the bedside table and flumped back-first onto the bed.

“We wait.”

Mathal woke with a start at half past three. The fire had burnt down to the faintest smoke and smoulder over the old ashes. Ants crawled up either side of the bed and over the diagonally napping forms of Tarvi and Moris on either side of her. As the ants stepped into her aura, their bodies disintegrated into a pale yellow dust that swirled up around her. Each ant carried a fraction of a memory and an array of partial sensations. When they’d all returned, the yellow dust vanished into her open, waiting mouth. She shook Tarvi and Moris by the shoulders.

“You need to see this.”

They followed her through the dark, empty halls and up the stairs to the attic. They breathed through their sleeves to keep from choking on the dust that hung as thick as a fog in the air. It coated walls and islands of crates, chests, drawers, and filing cabinets. Gorvio’s footprints cut a clear path into the heart of the clutter. They stopped in front of a door formerly locked by an intricate iron padlock that now laid open on the floor. Mathal reached for the handle, but Moris’s hand reached hers first.

“If we don’t want him to see us, I can turn us invisible. But only for a few minutes. And we’d have to hold hands so we wouldn’t bump into each other.”

Tarvi took his other hand. They went through the door joined at the hands, invisible. 

The room was bare and entirely devoid of dust. A pair of double doors in the north wall danced with shadows despite the lack of a light source. Mathal, first in line, placed her palm to the metal. Her stomach wrenched inside her as the room tilted and whirled to a metal blur with her as its axis.

The doors dropped them into a storm gray corridor that unfolded itself upwards and outwards into story after story of iron-barred cells. Wisps of shadow-black fog coiled and writhed over the floor. A soft, barely audible whispering floated in and out of hearing. Mathal vomited, invisibly, off to the side but didn’t let go of Moris’s hand.

An ear-grating howl pierced through the disembodied whispers from a distance anywhere between a few feet to a hundred yards down the hall. A sliver of blue-white light flashed. Thunder boomed and shook a wave through the coiled shadows. Mathal ran toward the increasingly layered strains of combat as fast as Moris and Tarvi would let her.

The corridor opened into an indoor river of equal parts water and mud under a domed ceiling. Four gaunt, quill-spined beasts each as large as a tiger closed in on Gorvio on the slick riverbank. A bearded devil stalked along the line of the churning pool below, the saw-toothed tip of their glowing red glaive scratching a chalk line into the stone. 

The devil cupped a hand around their tilted grin and howled. The four beasts filled the reverb chamber with their deafening, skull-grating bays.

Gorvio clapped his hands over his ears. His quarterstaff fell, its clatter consumed by the echoes.

The devil and their dogs charged.

Mathal’s witchlocks slammed into the nearest beast. It yelped and skidded off the bank into the churning pool. Moris cut down the next, severing hind from forequarters with a red spray. Their invisibility faded away extremities first.

A horizontal geyser exploded sixty feet out past Mathal and Moris. A third beast flew into the river, but the devil sidestepped Tarvi’s torrent without a break in speed. 

Their glaive clacked against Gorvio’s quarterstaff. The last beast pounced at Gorvio’s open back. Lightning flashed down from the ceiling and up from the floor. The bolts pierced the beast in mid-arc. It yelped piteously but sunk its teeth into Gorvio’s leg. He cried out, his grip shifting on the staff. The glaive slashed below the staff and ripped a gash across their chest.

Mathal and Moris screamed for blood. Four pairs of bone-thin arms as pale as death burst up from the churning pool beside them. Between eight hands, they snagged one ankle of Mathal’s and Moris’s and dragged them to the water’s edge.

Mathal slid her free leg back for balance, at the same time lunging to stab her claws into two needle-toothed undead. They screamed over the churning pool. Her witchlocks silenced one, ramming it face-first through the skull. It floated down with the muddy torrent.

Moris sliced through two pairs of clouded eyes. Light flashed. Thunder rattled the chamber. His free foot slipped out from under him. He screamed as they dragged him over the edge.

Mathal stamped her heel down. Teeth cracked under her foot. Her witchlocks whipped around Moris and pulled taut, suspending him inches over the torrent. The two remaining undead raked into his legs. Moris shifted his grip and slashed through both of them. The necromantic magic that animated their bones poured from their pores with the stink of the grave. The churning river flushed their re-expired bodies away.

Mathal set Moris back on his feet on the stone bank. His blood ran pink through the puddles. Tarvi crouched beside Gorvio. He reclined in a pool more blood than water, her knee supporting his back. The devil twitched but couldn’t reach their glaive from where they dangled, impaled on a ten foot spear of ice. Mathal approached them just close enough for her witchlocks to snap the devil’s neck and end their agony.

She pulled out her blackthorn wand and pointed it at Gorvio.

“You’re getting healed,” at Moris, “you’re getting healed,” back at Gorvio, “and then you’re gonna answer some questions. Got it?”

“No questions,” Gorvio choked out.

Moris took two charges, but Gorvio needed three. 

They went back to the towering but much quieter corridor for the interrogation. Gorvio leaned back against the dark, glassy stone. Tarvi, Mathal, and Moris stood around him, not unlike a conditionally friendlier pack of the bearded devil’s quill dogs. Gorvio gave them an a-okay. Mathal went first.

“Where the Hell are we?”

“We’re in a magic vault.”

“Oh my gods-damned Archfiend,” said Tarvi. “And you’re a magic thief. Was this your plan the whole time? Ever since the play?”

“Yes and no. I’m not stealing anything, just taking out an artifact that should never have been here in the first place. The relic was stolen from Nidal. My friends and I want to use it to get rid of the shadowbeasts.”

“That’s impossible,” said Moris.

“Nidal’s our shadow-touched neighbor. If anyone knows how to deal with them, it’s the Nidalese.”

“Isn’t that, like, treason?” said Tarvi. “The shadows are the government-sanctioned night watch.”

“Sure, but they shouldn’t be. We live under a reign of terror. We’ve protested the shadowbeasts before, but Arvanxi wouldn’t listen. It’s time to make a stronger statement.”

“The Council’s gonna take it like a declaration of civil war.  _ If  _ it even works.”

“The nobles hate Arvanxi. If anything, they’ll only help undermine him. And even if it doesn’t work, my friends and I have to try. Now may be our only chance to leave Westcrown a better place than it was for us.”

Tarvi fell silent. Moris remained silent. Mathal had already made up her mind. The mystical, shadow-controlling artifact from Nidal sounded fake, but her hatred for Arvanxi was real.

“I’ll help.”

Chelon radiated approval from her shoulder. Tarvi and Moris didn’t bother to hide their surprise, but they refrained from any wise remarks.

“I’m in,” said Tarvi.

“Me too, I guess,” said Moris.

“Thanks, guys.”

They followed Gorvio back into the chamber with the indoor river. All the bodies had disappeared. They proceeded warily down the riverbank. The far end of the chamber ended in a v-split hallway, one corridor branching northwest and the other branching southwest. They all knew it’d be most efficient to split up.

“Let’s meet back here in an hour,” said Tarvi.

Mathal handed Tarvi her walnut wand, never used, and nodded at Gorvio.

“You’re with me.”

Where she and Chelon both could keep their eyes on him.


	15. Curiouser and Curiouser

Chapter 15: Curiouser and Curiouser

The rush of the river followed Tarvi and Moris down the narrow stone hall growing fainter and fainter until it dropped away entirely at the hall’s end. An empty doorway opened to a rounded chamber over the mouth of a pit, its circular walkway barely wide enough for them to edge single-file into the room. A forest of shadowdy stalactites descended from the dizzying heights above. They transformed mid-dangle into iron chains that tangled into a massive sphere suspended over the center of the pit. Chains stretched from its undercurve down into the red glow of the pit, but several chains floated and writhed in the air. Rust flaked from their fragmented tips and caught the light like cinders billowing from a pyre.

Moris reached out toward the dancing rust flakes. The nearest unbound chain writhed and whipped him across the knuckles.

“Ow.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t touch any of that with a iron pole. Especially because I think this might be a power conduit.”

She wasn’t about to peer over the edge into the magically glowing pit hole to be certain.

“If it’s a conduit, it doesn’t look like it’s holding up. Hey, maybe that’s why the magic fireplace tried to kill Mathal.”

“That...is plausible. Oh no.”

She spread her arms and her aura. The sphere and its chains flared powder blue everywhere they passed through her arc of magic detection. She turned to the stone blocks of the wall and skirted the walkway. One by one, a chain of six numbers appeared across one foot of stone: 2-5-6-4-8-2. She cursed in Infernal.

“I’m not sure what you said, but it didn’t sound good.”

“There’s a good chance whatever relic we’re looking for may’ve already been stolen.”

“How do you know?”

“Mathal and I used to be a part of, uh, House Drovenge’s organized muscle. I just saw one of their tags.”

“No offense, but it seems odd that their thieves leave tags around for anyone to find.”

“Not just anyone.”

They would only leave them if another visit to the area was necessary. Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t over. Given the relatively complete lack of security around the attic itself, either Arvanxi and Crosael were still in the dark or, more likely, that weirdly Mathal-looking majordomo was in on it.

\--/--

Mathal and Gorvio kept five feet of silence between them, fed by her suspicion and his whatever-his-problem-was and growing increasingly more awkward and uneasy down the hall. By the time they reached the oak door at the end, they couldn’t even look at each other. Chelon kept careful watch in Mathal’s stead, turning a hundred and eighty degrees as she pushed through the door first.

The seemingly wooden walls of the room had been painted a bright, sunshiny yellow. Ruined heaps of what once had been schoolroom chairs and the study desks welded to them littered the floor. Across the room, a large padlock both shadowy and metallic hung from heavy chains over a second oaken door. A single word in Infernal had been burnt into the wood: ‘Exit.’

Four wooden signs, each hanging over a stairway that led out from the room, all bore similar Infernal pyrography: ‘Geometry,’ ‘Biology,’ ‘Physics,’ and ‘P.E.’

“Well looky here, the new mayor has finally come for the aptitude test,” rang out a bright and sunshiny voice from a box at the center of the ceiling. “Wait, why are there two of you? Oh! Oh! Are you competing for the office?”

The box let out a squee so high-pitched that Mathal and Gorvio had to clamp their hands over their ears. When it finished, Gorvio raised a hand.

“Sorry to disappoint you there, proctor, but we’ve already arranged to hold office jointly.”

“Poop. I guess that means you’ll be taking the exams jointly, too.”

“Any way we could skip the exams and just peek through your locked door?” asked Mathal.

“Ex-squeeze me? You mayors come into my examination hall and you have the nerve to dismiss my exams? I don’t think so.”

“Sorry about that, proctor. Please excuse my other half. We’ll take your exam.”

A bell dinged from the box. Much to Mathal’s disappointment, it didn’t mean they’d passed the first exam.

“The wonders of Geometry await you. Please take the stairs to the exam room and return with your answer sheet. Have a nice day!”

The flight of stairs under the Geometry sign led up to a cylindrical, thirty-foot high chamber. The walls had been studded with holes of various geometrical shapes and sizes along with hundreds of short wooden pegs. A wooden placard hung inches from the center of the ceiling.

“Right. I’ll get it,” said Mathal. 

She stuck her fingers into the holes for a grip. A soft hiss rose up from the walls. She yanked her hands away. The head of a hissing snake peered out from each and every hole like a thousand pimples popping. They slithered out and down the pegs, heading for Gorvio and Mathal at the center of the room.

“I got it,” said Gorvio.

He smacked his palms together. As he drew them apart, his aura flared bright green and his shape shifted. Hair and skin ripped and burned away over black feathers. A glinty-eyed crow flapped up and away from where Gorvio had once stood. He flew to the ceiling and snapped the placard’s rope handle up in his pitch black beak.

Mathal ran for the staircase, hopping over the snakes continuing to gather on the floor. Some reared their heads and struck at her, but her witchlocks were faster and bat them away. Without her spells, her feet were not so fast. One scaly, tubular guy crunched under foot.

“Gah!”

She snatched up the wounded snake but didn’t stop until she’d reached the first stair. The test center’s magic kept the snakes confined to the Geometry room and off the steps, so she kept her snake-holding hand held inside the room. She gave the snake a charge of her wand with the other.

Gorvio flew down and landed lightly on her free shoulder. She lowered the newly charged snake to the floor. It slithered off perfectly fine and even well enough to rejoin its tubular buds rearing and hissing at her. Chelon radiated a mix of approval and longing hunger.

As soon as Mathal took the placard reading ‘Answers’ from the crow’s beak, he shifted off her shoulder in a green flare. Gorvio leaned against the opposite wall of the stairwell, arms crossed but a less defensive if more unreadable expression on his face.

“What?”

“Are you one of those hates-people-but-loves-animals kind of person?”

“I liked you better when you were a bird.”

\--/--

Tarvi and Moris descended from the broken conduit’s chamber down a flight of cracked, crooked stairs. Moisture hung thick in the air and damp over the stone. A throat-itching reek of spicy mold combined with a rancid stink of waste and decay drawing tears from their eyes and water from their noses. The rush of the river returned and grew to a roar by the time they reached the empty doorway at the bottom of the stair. They entered and immediately burst into a fit of dry-heaving coughs.

A waterfall of mud gushed from a massive pipe into a lake of pus-yellow sludge that stretched out between them and a doorway at the far end of the chamber. The circular walls loomed hundreds of feet above, melting down from the vaulted stone of a shadowy cathedral. An island of rust, decay, skeletons, and offal floated at the center of the lake.

“I think we’d die trying to swim this,” said Moris between hacking coughs.

Tarvi shook her head and brandished Mathal’s wand.

“It’s for flying,” she choked out.

“Hope the air’s better up there.”

She nodded and held her arm out for Moris. He secured his arms around her shoulder and waist, bringing his soft, gently expressive face by her ear. Tarvi might’ve stared at him for a moment, many moments, to take in the play of light and shadow over his planes and hollows, but she retched violently instead. He continued to hold her, rubbing her back until she’d finished.

“Thanks.”

She charged herself with the wand. Her aura flared up powder blue with an ear-popping crackle, and her feet rose up off the floor. Tarvi laughed wildly behind her closed teeth. She couldn’t fly very quickly with Moris around her, but she took them well over the viscous waves of the lake.

A palm-sized circle of shadowy metal caught their eyes from the top of the island. The black ring held Asmodeus’s pentagram within and dangled by a chain from an upthrust trident. Tarvi tried to detect any magic from the unholy symbol, but her spell failed in mid-flight. Without the magic, they’d need a closer look.

Tarvi set them down on the island. Bits of broken blade and armor skittered down the garbage hill and thunked into the sludge. Tarvi and Moris shuddered and quickly turned to the face the symbol.

“It’s dark, but this won’t be controlling shadows anytime soon,” said Moris. “A symbol of Zon-Kuthon would be a better bet.”

“Who’s Zon--”

The island quaked. Detritus and debris thunked into sludge from all sides. The water sucked and squelched behind them. An oozing yellow wave rose up from the lake and crashed into the island, shaking down the layer of filth under their feet. They slid and screamed.

\--/--

Back in the yellow room, Mathal held out the answer plank for the box to sense by whatever its means.

“Congratulations! You’ve passed the Geometry exam. You can just put your answer sheet down anywhere.”

Gorvio set it down on the remains of a desk.

“What’s up next?”

“Biology. I hope you’ve brought your lab-practical footwear. Please take the stairs to the exam room and return with your answer sheet. Have a nice day!”

The stairs led to a near-identical cylindrical room without the pegs and holes. Dozens of wicker cages hung from thick ropes from the ceiling, each dangling at a different height from the floor like a set of reedy windchimes. Again, the ceiling held the answer plank.

Mathal crossed her arms and waited for Gorvio to do his thing. The black crow flew up around her with a green flash. As he flapped between the wicker circle, the cages buzzed and rattled at the end of their ropes. The woven walls ripped and split around crow-sized mosquitoes on bat wings, their needle-sharp proboscises as long as Mathal’s forearm.

“[Redacted].”

She grit her teeth in desperate, wordless prayer and clicked her heels. Magic surged up under her feet. She leaped twenty feet into the air and grabbed the nearest rope.

Six of the twelve chimeras broke off from those chasing the crow. They dive-bombed her.

Her nails ripped through exoskeleton. Her own momentum sent her windmilling away from the rope, but her witchlocks shot past either ear. They grappled the rope. The chimeras rained down.

She swatted one by her ear and one by her elbow. One proboscis sliced through the thin costume to her thigh. Another jabbed up through her foot.

Mathal roared and kicked out her heel, snapping the proboscis off the chimera. It slid out her foot, head still attached. She slammed her palm against the one on her arm. It burst under force, splattering her with her own blood. She didn’t have time to gag.

Gorvio flew by her side. She snatched the answer plank from his beak, sliding it down to the crook of her elbow. The remaining six chimeras immediately changed course. The crow flew into the stairwell.

Mathal clicked her heels, but the spell didn’t take. The chimeras dived. She cursed and jumped. The floor came up hard and fast. She rolled as far as she could, witchlocks cradling Chelon, but she still fell short of the doorway. Six needles stabbed through her back. The blood rushed from her head.

Hands grabbed her limp wrists. Gorvio dragged her the final yard to the stairs. The weight of her lost blood lifted off her back, flying away with a fading buzz.

Gorvio offered her a hand up, but she sat back on her heels and drew her wand with a shaking hand. His hand stayed out while she gave herself two charges and after she stowed the wand. She put the plank’s rope handle in his hand and pushed up by herself.

“Wow,” said Gorvio, dripping sarcasm.

“Thanks for the save. There. Happy?”

“Look, I know you don’t trust me, but could we just start over?”

She sized him up for a long few seconds. She’d agreed to help him and, coincidently, his goals even seemed noble. But he’d also kept up false pretenses for the entire time they’d known him and, unlike Moris, Gorvio was a great liar. Unlike Tarvi, she had no idea where he’d come from.

They didn’t have time for this.

“I’ll think about it.”

They didn’t have time for that either. They had to get a wooden answer plank back to a sentient wooden box.


	16. The End of Exams

Chapter 16: The End of Exams

Tarvi kept her grip on the wand and flew up from the island, out of the wave’s reach. Moris had stabbed his sword into the trash heap, stopping his slide. He climbed up over the blade and drew it with a slash through the retreating sludge. The metal passed clean through without a ripple in the attacking water.

Tarvi flew down to grab him in passing, but the water returned with two waves. One surged up at her. It snagged her foot with the strength of its tide. She spun wildly, hurtling toward the surface of the lake. Tarvi screamed but managed to point the wand straight up. She shot up like a fish on a line, legs breaking the through the water and kicking a noxious yellow trail out behind her.

The wave, recongealed to its single large self once more, slammed Moris into the side of the island. He went sliding with the debris down into the lake. He broke the surface, arms and sword flailing to stay afloat.

Tarvi swooped toward him. His empty hand reached for her. Just as her fingers brushed his forearm, the hostile water yanked him down under.

“[Redacted]!” 

\--/--

Mathal and Gorvio looked through the doorway of the Physics chamber without sparing the other a glance. Hundreds of flickering candles burnt in narrow niches that lined the cylindrical walls all the way to the ceiling.

“I’ve only got enough energy to shapeshift one more time.”

“Have anything fireproof?”

“Are you joking? Because I honestly can’t tell.”

Without answering, she stepped into the room to see what threat they were facing this time. Every tongue of flame shrank in toward the wick and candle. Something wasn’t--the tongues exploded into roaring, searing, blinding heat. 

Mathal staggered back into the stairwell, hands on either side of her spinning head. She blinked and blinked but the large spots of flashing white wouldn’t go away. One curse led to another. She backed into the wall and slid down to the floor, issuing an ear-burning flood.

“What? What is it? Mathal!”

“I can’t see!”

“The room blinded you?”

“Temporarily, yeah, but I don’t know how long it’ll last.”

Gorvio cursed.

“Yeah. Can you turn into a bat?”

“Bats have echolocation, but they have eyes, too.”

“Just keep your eyes closed.”

“Yeah, that’ll solve everything.”

“Yeah, no. Look, I can’t see right now, but if this test is really for mayors, I bet Box Proctor has some kind of antidote. The faster we get this over with, the better for both of us, so do you want my help or not?”

“Fine. Fine!”

“Then change into a bat and shut your [redacted] eyes.”

\--/--

Tarvi closed her eyes, held her breath, and dove into the lake, directly over the spot where Moris had vanished. The sludge burned and stung her skin, ears, and nose, but she kept the wand pointed down.

Hands grabbed at her extended forearm. She plunged her free arm down, meeting a solid back. She hooked her arm around Moris’s side and pointed the wand up. They shot through the layers of sludge and broke the surface of the water, coughing, gasping, and hacking.

Tarvi took them up and up, but the water followed. A column of the sludge swirled up in a waterspout under Moris. He slashed two crossing strikes through the water. The column rose no higher, but it continued to follow Tarvi as she flew over the island to the opposite shore. It crashed as a massive wave onto the shore just short of the doorway to the next shadowy corridor.

Tarvi set them down in the corridor. Moris braced one arm against the wall, wrapped the other around his stomach, and heaved in the corner. Tarvi held his hair and rubbed his shaking back. When he finally raised his head, she placed the back of her hand against his wet forehead. He continued to shake.

“Moris, you’re burning.”

“Not dead though,” he rasped. “Thanks for that.”

“I can take us back.”

“We’re already here. Could just see what’s at the end of the hall.”

“Fine, but at the first sign of danger, we’re out of there. Can you walk?”

He took his hand off the wall. He put it back.

“Not as well as I’d like.”

She held her arm out for him. He stepped in, laying his over her shoulders for support. She hooked him around the waist and brandished the wand.

“Why walk when we can fly?”

\--/--

Gorvio flew back in a cloud of hot smoke. The smell lingered after he shifted back.

“Did you get burned?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for the concern.”

“I literally have a wand of healing.”

“Yeah, and a lot of good it did you.”

“First of all,” she cursed him. “Secondly, if you need healing you’d better say it right now because I’m not offering again.”

“I only got a little singed.”

Mathal held out her wand hand. Gorvio took a half-step closer, just enough that some part of him brushed the tip of the wand. She gave him a single charge, plenty of magic for ‘a little’ singeing, and put the wand away. She stood with her back to the wall, then a hand. Her foot felt around for the edge of the step.

“It’s there. Yeah--no.”

“I got it.”

He kept a step behind her and mostly silent. The trip down took them almost three times as long as usual. As soon as they reached the yellow room, Mathal slumped against the nearest wall all the way down to the floor.

“Congratulations! You’ve passed the Physics exam. Today’s final exam is: P.E. Whenever you’re ready, please take the stairs to the exam room and return with your answer sheet. Have a nice day!”

“Are you coming?”

Mathal rifled through her pack. She tossed the wand at him.

“Great, thanks, but if you want to get healed, shouldn’t you be taking this exam with me?”

“Box Proctor, if I take this exam, can you help me get rid of these eye spots?”

“Sorry, but I’m just a proctor-slash-door guardian. Don’t you worry, they’ll fade in a few hours.”

“Great. Thanks. Go without me. It’ll be faster.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me! That was your idea!”

“Change of ideas. This is more efficient.”

“No, what would be more efficient would be you letting me help you up the stairs. Then you could just sit there and cast any supporting magic from the hall. Mathal, I could use your help. Please just let me help you, so you can help me, so we can get this gods-damned relic and get out of here. Please?”

One thing was certain. They’d wasted more time arguing than Mathal had imagined possible. She groaned, exasperated, and held up an arm for the wand.

Gorvio misinterpreted. He didn’t give her the wand. He bent down so her arm went over his shoulders and picked her up. She crossed her arms over her chest. He tucked the wand under her arm. She let him carry her up the stairs and set her down outside the final doorway.

“I think the P.E. exam is spiders.”

“You didn’t even go in.”

“I can see the webs from here. I know my animals and those are definitely spiderwebs.”

Spiders, she could handle with or without her sight.

“I’m going in.”

“Fine. Then, I’m going in too.”

“You know animals. You’ll get bitten, bloat, and die. I know spiders. Stay here and watch Chelon.”

She passed him her familiar and walked right into the room without another word. Spiderweb broke and clung to her legs. Web shook and rustled from above. A spider no heavier than a raindrop tumbled down onto her head. More followed, jumping and raining, coating her in many spiny legs and hairy bodies. By the time the last one landed, she had bent her knees in a low squat to support the thick, crawling layers. But they didn’t bite her.

Mathal raised one arm, slowly so as not to disturb the swarm, and pointed up toward the ceiling.

“Web.”

She tried again.

“Web.”

She held both hands out and took a step toward the wall. Spiders uncovered her hand as they scuttled off of her onto their web. She walked her fingers to one of the fine strands and gave it a gentle tug. 

The layers of spiders shook and aimed their spinnerets. She felt the spring in their legs as they fired strands and strands onto the wall over her. Her feet left the floor. The layers hauled her up where she directed with her tugs. 

They lifted her higher and higher until her uncovered fingers touched solid ceiling behind sticky, springy web. She tugged toward the center of the ceiling. They hauled her across and waited as she felt around. Her nails clacked on wood. She unhooked the final answer plank and pushed the surface of the web with her palm.

The swarm lowered her in a series of short drops and stops. The web suspension absorbed all of gravity’s jerks for a smooth, nearly floating descent to the floor. The spider layers scurried off en masse as she crossed the threshold.

“Where’s my turtle?”

Gorvio traded her Chelon for the plank. He didn’t say anything, but she could feel his questioning stare. She took his guiding arm without an answer.


	17. They've Got a Box

Chapter 17: They’ve Got a Box

A bell rang out from behind the ceiling’s box as the last answer plank clattered onto the desktop.

“Congratulations! You’ve passed all four exams of the Wiscrani Mayor Aptitude Test! Let us have a moment of silent prayer in thanks to Asmodeus for this great victory.”

The moment passed. The heavy metal padlock and the thick chains around the final door clunked to the floor. Gorvio guided Mathal around the metal and into a stinking cloud of sewer-lite pungence. The stale reek was at complete odds with the fine, carpet-y softness under her shoes.

“Stairs ahead...and they lead straight into a pond of bubbling green sewer, lovely.”

The smell only got stronger as they deeper they descended.

“Do you see the relic?”

“N--”

A great bubbling up and sloughing off of falling slime sounded from directly in front of them. Mathal’s eyes and nose burned and watered from the unearthed gases.

“Yeah, I see it now,” he said hoarsely. “There’s a devil-otyugh chimera wearing it like a crown.”

The room fell into a silence broken only by the popping of noxious gas bubbles. A thundering wail threw Gorvio and Mathal back onto the stairs with its strength but mostly its suddenness. The sound rapidly devolved into blubbering sobs.

“Visitors! Finally! Visitors! Come to see the Outcast King after all this time!” the devil-yugh wept in Infernal.

Gorvio helped Mathal to her feet and bowed beside her. She followed suit. If she could avoid a fight with the giant, three-tentacled aberration magically created to clean sewers by devouring their filth, she would, especially one combined with the cunning of a treacherously lawful devil.

“Of course we’ve come to see you, your Majesty. We’re the new mayors of Westcrown. It would be beneath our station not to greet and trade with the local royalty.”

“Indeed, indeed! Trade you say?” the devil-yugh’s volume dropped from a boom to what must have counted as a hush amongst otyughs and their toothy maws large enough to snap up a humanoid in a single bite.

“Trade, indeed. The mayors of Westcrown are seeking a new symbol of status. That, your crown, that may be just the thing. Think of it--a crown for Westcrown!”

“Oh, yes, I see it. But you see, I’m awfully fond of my crown. I couldn’t bear to part with it. Except, perhaps, if one of you were to stay here with me in my court to ease my grief.”

Mathal briefly forgot her temporary blindness to look over at Gorvio. All she could hear was the pop of sludge bubbles.

\--/--

Tarvi and Moris floated through the door at the corridor’s end into a room that narrowed like a trapezoid. Black metal stretched floor to ceiling over the walls. Despite the lack of light in the room, shadowy figures glided and dispersed inside the mirrors.

Tarvi cast her magical detection and the three black mirrors flared powder blue, but there were no arcane marks left by the Orphanage. Whatever this was, it was of no interest or relevance to the mission.

“I wonder if these are trapped souls,” said Tarvi.

Moris caught her shoulder, keeping her from getting any closer to the walls. His silvery blue eyes had gone wide and staring in his drawn, sunken face.

“We have to get out. I think these might be--”

Three shadowy legs stepped out from the mirrors. Six clawed hands followed closely.

Tarvi hooked Moris by the waist and yanked him with her, flying out of the room. But together they were heavy and far too slow. The shadows’s claws raked through their legs. A chill lanced up from the wound straight to Tarvi’s head like the, followed by numbness.

“No!”

Fire roared out from Moris’s hands, torching the three pursants. The screamed and writhed in flaming silence. The numbness faded from Tarvi’s legs, but a dull ache remained.

Shadowy claws raked down from above. Tarvi screamed as the incorporeal but rending shadow slashed through her face. The chills stabbed straight into her brain.

Another cone of fire blasted the shadows above, but it wasn’t enough. The entire ceiling writhed and crawled with shadowy limbs.

“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!”

\--/--

Gorvio bumped her elbow with his and did something unexpected. He stepped away from the staircase and toward the devil-yugh.

“I would be more than happy to spend out my days in your court of wonders in exchange for bequeathing your crown upon my fellow mayor.”

“Marvelous! Marvelous!”

“Ah, two tentacles, please. She’s got butterfingers, and that crown mustn’t touch the ground.”

“Of course not, what a travesty that would be my dear, sweet mayor.”

Mathal nodded and held out her hands, a low witchlock wrapping around Chelon. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one either of them had come up with on such short notice. The chimera wriggled two tentacles around a weirdly faceted box between her hands. Spikes lined both tentacles, meaning the one tentacle lined with eyeballs remained at large. The spikes were the greater threat at any rate.

Mathal sunk her nails between the spikes and deep into rubbery tentacle.

“Yow!”

The chimera yanked their tentacles, but she was ready. She braced, muscles straining, and held them fast. The tentacles stretched taut. She unhooked her claws. Before the tentacles could retract, she crossed her nails through their overextended  underbelly. The follow swept the spiked tips to the floor.

The devil-yugh screamed. Witchlocks grappled the twelve-sided box. Heat flashed. Thunder shook the room. Gorvio grabbed her elbow.

“Run!”

A second bolt shook the remaining sounds from her ears. She tripped up the stairs and gave up up standing. She crawled past Gorvio on all fours. 

A third bolt. He grabbed her ankle. The chimera dragged them both.

Mathal roared for nothing but the heat in her throat. She sprang off the stairs and over Gorvio, twisting in the air. She hit the tentacle belly-first, eyeballs squishing under the force. Her nails raked over and under the tentacle. Her fingers crossed between each other as they ripped the rubbery flesh to pulp.

A fourth bolt flashed blue-green through the spots in her eyes. She fell to the stairs, crushing severed eyes under her. Gorvio grabbed the back of her costume and turned her around. They crawled up together and back into the relatively fresh air of the yellow room. Gorvio’s voice rang out through the thick muffling in her ears.

“Proctor! The door! Lock the door!”

It whooshed shut behind them.

\--/--

The wand fell from Tarvi’s numb fingers. It clattered onto the stone shore of the yellow sludge lake. She landed beside it. The forced knocked all the air out of her lungs, which was the only thing that kept her from immediately gagging on the lake’s fumes, somehow more noxious than she remembered.

The shadows didn’t follow, but Moris skidded to a stop not far ahead. He pushed up onto his arms and dry heaved off to the side.

“We’re alive. Yay,” he rasped.

They crawled up onto their hands and knees and looked back at the corridor. The shadowy limbs, writhing, retreated into the narrow darkness. Tarvi’s shoulders shook uncontrollably. She couldn’t contain her laughter, but as soon as she opened her mouth, up came the chuck.

“Ok, there’s no relic,” said Tarvi. “Let’s just get back to the others.”

Mathal and Gorvio were already waiting in the river room, a twelve-sided box in Gorvio’s hands. Their noses wrinkled, but neither said anything about Tarvi and Moris’s stench.

“Do you need some healing?” asked Gorvio.

“I’d settle for a bath,” said Tarvi. “A long, non-magically heated one. Speaking of, we’re not the only ones who’ve been down here.”

“Well, we got the relic--”

“The relic’s inside the box,” said Gorvio.

Mathal’s unfocused gaze narrowed.

“Let’s just get out of here.”

The main doors teleported them back to the once-locked room of the attic with a nauseating whirl. Gorvio re-locked the heavy padlock, but none of them could do anything about the path marked out by their footprints in the dust. When the Orphan returned to finish the job, they’d know someone else had been in the vault. They would simply have to tell someone about the sabotage before the Orphan could frame them for it.

As soon as they returned to the second floor, they froze at the sight of a staring halfling. All except for Mathal, who bumped into Tarvi and Moris’s shoulders. She must’ve read the tension because she didn’t say anything.

Neither did the slave. They jerked their chin at Gorvio and hurried off. He really had worked his way in here. Mama Jani would’ve been proud.

Tarvi shivered the errant thought away. Gorvio headed to the rooms while she, Mathal, and Moris returned to the baths. No one else was there, either asleep or still orgying. Gorvio joined them at the washbasin corner where they looked longingly at the unused bubble-bathing tubs. The cold water was still more than welcome, although Tarvi couldn’t be sure she’d washed all the lake stench away or was just smelling phantom fumes after three dousings.

By the time they shuffled into Gorvio’s room, bundled in pajamas, robes, and towels, the skies had lightened from black to an infernally early morning gray outside the window. Tarvi flumped belly-first onto the bed. Moris dropped beside her. Gorvio and Mathal crawled up and sat huddled at opposite ends of the headboard with nearly space enough for a horse between them. 

Tarvi snorted in exhausted amusement. Without getting up, she and Moris took turns explaining what they’d found.

“The question is, who do we tell?” said Tarvi.

Mayor Arvanxi might alert Crosael’s suspicions or, worse, outright tell them. The only nobles they knew were Chammady and Eccardian and only in passing.

“Delour,” said Mathal. “She’s a noble.”

“That’s right! I completely forgot she was noble,” said Tarvi. “She and Calseinica both. Great, that’s one problem solved.”

The four fell into a silence of near-audible whirring from their mental cogs. The whirring didn’t last. There was a near-audible slowing as the seconds stretched to minutes.

“Can we see the relic?” asked Moris.

“Let’s just check if Delour and Calseinica are in first,” said Gorvio.

They weren’t. They dragged themselves off the bed to check the other rooms. They were all empty. They dragged themselves back into a ring around Gorvio and the box in his hands.

“A little space, please.”

They backed away as he traced a rune on one of the twelve faces with a fingernail. The rune lit up with a red glow. He turned the box around and traced a second. It lit. He turned and traced until all twelve runes glowed Asmodean red.

The edges lit. They pulled apart into linked bands of runes that whirred and spun over his hands. The bands folded flat like the bud of a cubist flower under a red glow. The light faded. 

The red, severed head of a devil rolled around the flat plate on its stump. Papers impaled on its black, many-branched horns, rustled to a stop. Their chiseled face grinned. It burst into booming song:

“Greetings, mortals there, what will your pleasure be?

Let me take your order, jot it down?

You ain’t never had a friend like me.

“Life is your restaurant and I’m your maitre’d

Come on whisper what it is you want;

You ain’t never had a friend like me!

“Can your friends do this?”

The head jumped on its stump.

“Can your friends do that?”

The head turned a bouncing cartwheel.

“Can your friend pull this,” they rolled a circle on their face, ending with a jump upright, “out of their little hat?”

“You ain’t never had a friend, never had a friend,

You ain’t never had a friend, never had a friend,

You ain’t never had a friend like me.

You ain’t never had a friend like me!”

The papers shot up off the devil’s horns like confetti. The head looked at them an open-mouthed, expectant grin.

“You’re the relic?” asked Mathal.

“That is literally the most insulting thing I’ve ever--”

“Where’s the relic?” shouted Gorvio.

“If by ‘relic’ you mean ‘that stupid stick,’ don’t get your panties in a twist--it’s not like I ate it. We got switched. I was unceremoniously shoved into that stupid stick’s box and that stupid stick got my sweet pad in Delvehaven.”

“I’ve never heard of a city of Delvehaven,” said Tarvi.

“Oh, it’s not a city. It’s a guildhall in Westcrown. I can take you there.”

“Great. That’s just great,” growled Gorvio.

“Hey, cheer up, Gorvio. We’re so close. It’ll just be a little longer,” said Moris. “Mx. Devil, what should we call you?”

The papers swirled slowly from the floor as though falling upward and re-pierced themselves onto the devil’s horns. Each one contained lines of effectively illegible script written in reddish brown, all except for their very legible signatures.

“I’m so glad you asked. My name is Kulata, they/them, and I am a contract devil. Well, the undead remains of one. That said, if you should ever find yourself with an unfulfilled wish, mortal, do I have a deal for you.”


	18. Only a Matter of Dark and Time

Chapter 18: Only a Matter of Dark and Time

With a suspicious majordomo on the premises and an Orphan at large, the four set a watch, rotating every two-and-a-half hours. Mathal took the final quarter from one to three-thirty in the afternoon. As told by Box Proctor, the white spots in her eyes had completely faded by that time. Despite the lateness of the hour, she did what she always did when she woke up and drew a chalk circle around herself and Chelon. 

“Is that a figurative circle?”

She jumped at the smoky voice from the direction of the fireplace. Kulata jumped from the seat of their overstuffed armchair onto the chair arm with a grin to make a sewage-munching otyugh proud. She placed her hands on Chelon’s shell without a word.

“You are my shell-shine, my only shell-shine,  
You make me happy when fritos lay,  
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you,  
Please--”

“Can it, buddy. I need to concentrate.”

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a witness to the wonder that is me? I’ve been questioning my own existence in that Hell-forsaken box for the past sixty years!”

“If you’ve been questioning your existence, how do you know it’s been sixty years?”

“Oh, I see. So you’re always this insulting.”

“If you ever stopped talking, I’d be forced to not-insult you.”

“I take back a third of my disparagement. You should consider becoming a devil after Hell inevitably welcomes your soul. Actually, if you wanted to cut straight to the rain-down of Hellish torment upon your enemies…”

Kulata opened wide. A parchment scroll inked in reddish-brown unfurled off the top of their tongue and down the side of the armchair.

Mathal snatched Kulata’s box up in her witchlocks and slapped it down on the bottom end of the parchment. The impromptu paperweight pulled the contract and the devil’s tongue taut. Mathal returned to her communion while Kulata tugged, whined, and sobbed--speechlessly. She removed the box only when she and Chelon, now inside her, had finished.

“Pbbtth,” said Kulata.

They didn’t say anything else until after Mathal had woken Tarvi, Moris, and Gorvio. If Kulata had expected a more sympathetic ear, they’d picked the wrong audience. Gorvio even threatened to put them back in the box, which a miraculously silencing effect. Mathal took note of that for later.

Tarvi and Moris left to find Calseinica. Mathal looked at Gorvio, who looked at Kulata, who looked back at Gorvio, who looked back at Mathal. She kept her groans inside where only her turtle could hear them.

“You’re both coming with me.”

“This party has seen some abominations, but a severed devil’s head, an undead severed devil’s head, is still gonna attract attention.”

Mathal ignored Gorvio and dumped her backpack into the armchair opposite Kulata’s.

“Bag or box?”

Kulata let out a long, lungless sigh.

“Bag, I guess.”

Mathal kept the top flap slightly askew. It wasn’t much of a view, but it was more than they deserved anyway. She and Gorvio knocked on guestroom doors until one magically opened to Delour at a small vanity. She had already applied her myriad layers of foundation and had just begun adding a dash of color. Her eyes never left the mirror as she spelled the door closed behind them.

“Everyone here is in danger,” said Mathal.

Delour lowered her brush and palette.

“You have my attention.”

Mathal and Gorvio explained and frequently spoke over each other mid-explanation of what they’d found in the vault. Delour pushed her chair out from the vanity.

“I’m out.”

“Don’t make it obvi--”

“--tip off the perp--”

“--is probably still he--”

“--hiding.”

“Thanks, I didn’t need a chorus to tell me that.”

“Sorry,” said Mathal and Gorvio.

“I’ll get Nonon and Calseinica to fake food poisoning with me. It shouldn’t be hard. I can still feel that gods-damned snake trying to slither back up my throat.”

“Method acting,” snickered Gorvio.

“Asmo’s balls--just don’t tell Ulvauno.”

Gorvio’s smile had completely faded by the time that they returned to his room. He leaned against the bedpost, arms crossed and head down, not unlike a grumpy turtle. Mathal took an armchair, setting the bag on her lap without opening it. Tarvi and Moris returned after several minutes of awkward but welcome silence.

“They’re...turning it into a fake food-poisoning event,” said Moris.

“I don’t know if it’s because they’re actors or nobles, but I’m leaning toward ‘nobles,’” said Tarvi.

“We should probably leave, too.”

“Mathal and I don’t have anywhere to stay.”

“I’m sure you’d be welcome at Delvehaven,” came a muffled voice from Mathal’s backpack.

Tarvi grabbed the backpack by the sides and pulled it down off the devil’s face.

“How do we know you’re not lying to us?”

“I’m going to Delvehaven,” said Gorvio.

There was no sound but the pittering patter of rain on the windowpane. The second coming of clouds darkened the sky prematurely, but sunset was only two hours away anyway. If they went off to wherever the guildhall was, it was unlikely they could make it back to Aberian’s Folly. They’d be stuck, trapped, or even put out onto the street.

“Delvehaven housed a devil, but it couldn’t be any worse than where we are now with a vault full of shadowbeasts,” said Tarvi.

“I think I prefer devils to shadows,” said Moris.

“I love you,” said Kulata.

Mathal pulled the backpack back up over their face.

“We’ll need something to tell Arvanxi.”

“Leave it to me,” said Gorvio.

They packed what few belongings they’d brought and headed down to the banquet hall in search of Arvanxi. Unfortunately, they’d arrived two hours too early. They walked right into a cloud of nose-cauterizing cleaning fumes. Slaves hunched in neat rows polished all surfaces with new rags and brushes. Crosael, wearing a shiny metal whistle around his neck, approached the four, eyebrow quirked.

“May I help you?”

“I wish you could,” said Gorvio, “but you can’t. We’re not a bunch of wine connoisseurs. I’m sure you can tell just looking at us. So, thanks for the wine, but we’d rather go out and buy our own drinks.”

“Ah. Yes. Try not to break into the merchandise while you’re out. The gates close at six. Our Lord-Mayor would be quite saddened to find his honored guests slaughtered on the streets.”

“Right, we’ll try not to die.”

They left through the gates as fast as they could reasonably walk. Mathal shrugged her backpack off and around to carry it in front of her. She held one arm over the popped top to keep the out the beads of cold rain.

“Which way to Delvehaven from the mayor’s villa?”

“Calculating…”

Mathal flicked the devil through the sturdy side of her pack.

“That could’ve been my eye, you know. Go east to the bank of the River Adivian. Then turn left.”

The devil’s directions brought them to the Adivian Walk, a scenic, riverside road that meandered far longer than it needed to. Its twists and turns added half an hour of rain-soaked jogging up a sixty-foot bluff. At the very least, they didn’t meet anyone else on the way up.

They couldn’t miss the twelve-foot wall at the top of the bluff. Bird droppings and salt deposits coated a chipped and faded layer of sunset pink paint. Neglectful management was one thing, but the rusted iron chains that sealed the rusted iron doors shut were the clincher.

Mathal pulled Kulata out of the bag and pointed them face-first at the front gate.

“I suppose it’s natural things would go downhill after sixty odd years.”

Tarvi turned over a rotted oak placard with her foot.

“‘By the order of Her Infernal Majestrix, this guildhall is condemned. Trespassing prohibited.’”

“We’ll have the place all to ourselves--I’d call that a stroke of luck.”

Mathal’s stomach growled over the pelting rain and the surf crashing at the bottom of the bluff. She cursed. Moris handed her an apple out of his pack.

“Don’t worry. I’m carrying enough food to last...three days, assuming Kulata doesn’t need to eat.”

“Just because I don’t need to doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy--”

“I took you out of the bag. I’ll put you back in.”

Mathal’s threat worked just as well as Gorvio’s. She pulled the drawstring mouth of her backpack tight around Kulata’s stump and adjusted the straps where they would keep them upright under her chin. The devil’s branched, paper-poking horns framed her face like a secretary’s weaponized chinstrap.

Tarvi pulled out the wand of flight. She took Mathal over first and went back for the others. The front yard was a weed-choked mess of overgrown topiaries and mismatched lawn decor. Huge, carved and rotted totems lined the west end. Fountains down the center line were more algae than stone. They were flanked by a pair of warrior statues whose facial features and extremities had all crumbled away.

“Let’s just get out of the rain.”

“Wait!”

Mathal froze, her foot hovering over the gravel path.

“It’s trapped, isn’t it?”

“Normally, it wouldn’t be, but there was this one emergency measure for the lawn--something about turning it into a magical minefield.”

Of course there was.

“Lucky for us, we don’t need to walk,” said Tarvi, spinning the wand over her palm.

She ferried them over and underneath a sagging veranda, its columns thick and splotchy with pungent mildew. A carving of a road vanished into a curved horizon on the front doors. Tarvi turned over a second rotted placard. Only four words in Common remained: ‘liberate the Past’ ‘Today’.

Mathal jumped at the ear-stabbing shriek of rusted hinges.

“Sorry,” said Moris, standing between the opened doors. “They were unlocked.”

Gorvio shouldered past him into the dark.


	19. A History of Violence

Chapter 19: A History of Violence

They followed Gorvio into an entrance hall nearly as spacious as the one at Aberian’s Folly but not as impossibly lofty as that of the magic vault. Wide wooden stairs curled around the outer walls to the floor above. Dust-cushioned, moth-eaten chairs lined the east and west walls under a series of defaced paintings, each more damaged than the last. All faced a large but empty display platform at the center of the room.

“Well that’s disappointing,” said Kulata. “Not unexpected, but disappointing. There used to be such a lovely skeleton here.”

“What kind of guild did this hall belong to?” asked Moris.

“They fancied themselves an archaeologist’s guild, but that was a little generous.”

“If someone broke in and looted the skeleton…,” Tarvi began.

They might’ve taken the relic as well. Even Chelon lost a little heart at that.

“I need to be sure.”

Gorvio pointed limply down the hall between the stairs.

“For Westcrown.”

An archway stood at the end of the hall, opening to a longer but narrower corridor. A faded inscription had been carved into the wall above: ‘Who can go forward without knowing from whence they came?’

Mathal bristled at the pretentious rhetoric. She considered unmerging with Chelon to let him relieve himself on this wall in particular, not that he would ever stoop to her level of pettiness. Instead, she crunched on her apple. She was almost satisfied at the massive splatter of juice in Chelon’s stead.  
“Wait!”

Gorvio froze, his foot hovering over the tile path.

“It’s trapped, isn’t it?”

“Yes, for pedantry.”

The corridor’s northern and southern halves had been constructed in the mirror image of the other. Anyone who crossed the corridor’s midpoint triggered the trap. It transported everyone in the corridor to the mirror opposite position, so if they kept walking, they ended up back where they started.

“The trick is to walk backward until the midpoint and then turn continue forward the rest of the way. Of course, tradition dictates that those travelling down the hall--of life?--reflect on their past during the backward journey and then focus on the future during the forward.”

“I’m gonna pass on the reflection, thanks,” said Gorvio, turning his back to the corridor.

He proceeded to walk backward. Tarvi, Moris, and Mathal lined up single-file for their turns.

Mathal refused to think about her past. That only conjured the cursed image of Crosael. That changeling had crawled out of the same swamp that she had. There would’ve been another, too. Covens needed at least three members, and Mother was the kind of hag who’d prepare a contingency coven.

Her mental nausea gave way to physical nausea as the trap shifted the corridor. Chelon took it the hardest. They almost unmerged as his urge to vomit rose up in her aura.

Hey, bud, just hang in there. It’s gonna be okay.

It could just as easily not be ok. Everything depended on the hitherto unpaid payout from the play. It made Mathal even sicker to be so desperate. So hopeful. She and Tarvi both were trusting Yako’s claim about big money. Anything less...she’d go back to crime before that. She’d lose Tarvi, maybe even Moris. Gorvio, for all she cared, could go--

“The Natural History Exhibit! Oh, how I’ve missed this place.”

Hundreds of mostly smashed display cases now littered the floor with pins, needles, and thousands of taxidermied insects, spiders, and other arthropods over a field of glass. Dog-sized ants, human-sized spiders, and horse-sized scorpions had been mounted along the walls of the exhibit. The giant vermin had all been damaged by what appeared to be humanoid teeth, judging by the bitemarks.

“So I’m guessing there’s a trap,” said Gorvio.

“It certainly looks that way, but I don’t remember anything quite so...barbaric.”

Mathal’s growling stomach broke the silence. It was not alone. Someone else’s stomach growled. Gorvio doubled over, arms wrapped over his stomach. Tarvi’s knees buckled. She hit the ground grabbing her own stomach. Hunger pangs sharper and deeper than Tarvi’s frost-chilled dagger stabbed through Mathal’s gut. She grunted and wrapped her arms around her imploding insides.

The thousands of fallen arthropods rattled over their field of glass. Ghostly legs, wings, and heads exploded up from their shells into a clicking, chirping storm of phantasmal chitin. The violent, ghastly cloud thundered with a chitinous shriek and rained their swarm down upon them.

They screamed.

The ghost vermin bit, scuttled, and wormed their way through Mathal and out her back. Humanoid bitemarks erupted over the holes they tore but with each wave of the swarm, the pangs of hunger weakened.

Mathal grunted through her clenched teeth and forced herself to her feet. She hated feeling hungry. She opened her mouth to swarm, roaring.

The swarm shrieked back. The entire cloud spun and funneled down her throat. Her roar turned to a scream as legs, claws, and parts exploded out from under her shoulder blades in two ghastly wings.

Mathal dropped to her hands and knees. Red oozed down and stained the glass. She sobbed and sputtered blood. But when she looked over her shoulder, there was nothing left of swarm but a soft, vanishing mist.

Tarvi and Moris ran to her sides. Tarvi pulled out the healing wand and placed the tip to Mathal’s temple. Static snapped under Tarvi’s red-stained fingers. She cursed but didn’t let go of the wand. She tried again. She charged and cursed and cursed and charged until she was in tears.

The little holes in Mathal’s throat and back stitched closed. She took Tarvi’s wand hand in both of hers.

“I’m fine.”

She let out a cackle only a little more raw and husky than usual.

“You even got my voice back. Thanks.”

Mathal took care of the charging from there. She pulled Kulata free from the bag at last and turned them to face her. Their chewed through face grinned weakly. She could see the tendons twitching from strain through the larger holes.

“Looks like I can still talk.”

“A miracle.”

Being undead, they didn’t bleed, but they also wouldn’t be able to heal off the same life magic as the others. Only negative energy could heal them, or time. Neither of which they had at the moment. Mathal did the only thing she could and set Kulata back in her pack. 

They followed Gorvio to the hall at the end of the Natural History Exhibit. While there were several odd doors, light shone from underneath only one of them. Gorvio gave the wood a cautious but creaking push.

Twelve crystalline lanterns blazed from the ceiling and filled the room with a painful brightness. A large circle of inlaid silver and a much darker metal sat at the center of the floor. To the south stood a red metal door, cast so that a devil’s head appeared to be forming from the red metal itself. Runes from a language Mathal had never read danced in pale pink light along the door’s border.

“I hope one of you knows Azlanti, or I’ll have to spell out the passcode with my tongue.”

“Azlanti’s been a lost language for centuries,” said Tarvi.

“Really? It was quite hot with the archaeologists. No matter. My tongue has been criminally underused for sixty years. Mathal, if you would.”

She pulled them out of the pack and held them up within tongue’s reach of the runes.

“To the left. To the left. The first rune is the one that looks like the seated fellow being staked, twice.”

As soon as Kulata touched their tongue to the rune, the crystalline lights flickered and dimmed. Mathal’s head jerked toward the circle on the floor. The writhing wisps of gathering shadows confirmed that it was, in fact, a summoning circle.

“Tarvi, switch.”

Shadows stretched up from the writhing circle floor into the shape of a dog. Two dogs. Three dogs. Six. They were muscular creatures with black coats that sucked the light from the crystal lamps down to smouldering embers and plunged the room further into darkness. Beads of black saliva dripped from their shadowy teeth.

Mathal, Moris, and Gorvio lined up well in front of Tarvi’s exposed back, but the circle wasn’t finished. A large, skeletal cat with translucent, burning bones stepped out from one side of the silent, shadow-dripping dogs. From the other side stepped the three-horned skeleton of a dinosaur twice as large as a carriage. Black shadow flames burned from its insides out. Mathal could feel the weight of its bones from across the floor. It bore a metal placard from a metal chain around its neck: ‘Triceratops, excavated by:’ and a list of names too tiny for her to read at that distance.

“I call the triceratops,” she said.

“Not the dogs!” said Moris.

“I hate you both,” said Gorvio.

All six dogs howled, straight into their brains. Mathal clamped her hands over her ears instinctively, but the sound shook her skull from inside the bone. Shadows gathered at the focal point of the triceratops three horns. A beam of searing shadow shot toward them.

Gorvio flung out his hand. A jagged bolt of sheer, blue-green electricity shot back. Light and shadow shook the room with a lamp-rattling explosion.

“You’re welcome!” he shouted over their ringing ears.

The triceratops lowered its horns. It charged. All the shadowy, undead monsters charged.

They couldn’t dive out of the way, not with Tarvi behind them. Each bounding step built the monsters’s momentum. Mathal crouched in front of the others. She waited until the monsters were too fast to stop.

Shadow black and bony forelimbs sank six inches into grasping swamp. Dogs, cat, and dinosaur flipped over their own feet and slammed back-first onto the floor. Stone tile shattered under their spines.

A second lightning bolt shot from floor and ceiling through the nearest dog. The spinning end of Gorvio’s quarterstaff put it out of its misery.

Before the triceratops lumbered to its feet, Mathal darted in, nails and hair at the ready. She clawed and slammed, but only one hand gouged bone. The others went straight through a skin of flickering shadow.

Mathal cursed and sprang back off its rising skull. As long as they were in darkness, the shadows shielded all of the monsters. Affected them.

She backed away toward the east wall as the triceratops lumbered back to its feet. Fortunately, she had its attention. It charged. This time, she dove.

Its stampeding legs missed her by a hair’s breadth, black flames gusting ice-cold over her skin. Her hair did not miss.

Witchlocks shot at its back legs. They passed through one but snagged the other. Mathal jumped before the beast’s charge broke her neck. Her witchlocks went pole-straight vaulting her over its back. One arm and leg dropped through the shadow shield round its ribcage. The other arm and leg wrapped over the crest of its skull and clung for dear life.

The shadows under Mathal pulsed and flared with the triceratops’s silent roar. Its head shook violently, wringing her looser with every shake. It never stopped charging.

She drove the nails of her touching hand deep into the bone. Mathal grit teeth and hexed herself. The dinosaur’s skull cracked at her fingertips as her nails dug deeper. 

Mathal cackled wildly. She twisted her hand, wrenching the moving triceratops’s head toward the pack of shadowy dogs. The dinosaur barrelled through, flinging dogs into the air. They rained down heavy, cracking against the floor.

Mathal slammed her other hand up from behind the skull’s crest. The nails gouged and latched. She twisted the triaceratops’s head into an angle lethal to the living.

The dinosaur wheeled around. Its tail lashed out for balance but struck only the ghostly cat, sending it flying. The triceratops flailing legs stumbled and tripped over each other. It drove horns first into the floor.

The force threw Mathal off its back but couldn’t unhook her claws. Her witchlocks slammed the ground in front of them. The long, straight lever of hair magnified the forward force. The dinosaur’s skull wrenched off its spine in her grasp.

Mathal skidded to crouching stop. The skull and skeleton crumbled away to dust in a blast of necromantic stink. The dinosaur’s placard slid across the floor. She stopped it with her foot.

She jumped at a final bolt of blue-green light. The last dog fell to Gorvio’s quarterstaff. Two sides of the cat’s translucent skull slid off Moris’s blade. Shadows fled and bones disintegrated. The crystal lights brightened once more. Mathal’s panting breath faded back into hearing.

I liked that trap better than the last one, said Chelon.

“Me, too.”

Her grin dropped the second her hex re-snapped and stitched her body. Moris watched, mouth agape in morbid fascination. Gorvio also watched, cringing. They must not have gotten a good look when it had happened on stage. Somehow, this felt worse.

She turned her backs to them and headed over to Tarvi. The red door flashed with pale pink light. Steam and smoke poured out from behind the devil’s face. Tarvi stepped back.

The door swung open. Clouds of steam parted to reveal a spiral of descending stairs.

“Go us!” Kulata cheered and lisped.

Mathal took them off Tarvi’s hands and gave their horned noggin an affectionate noogie. They’d done good. They all had.


	20. What Lies in Dust

Chapter 20: What Lies in Dust

The stairs brought them down to long, massive hall choked by dust. Three separate layers of heavy vault doors that had stretched nearly floor to ceiling to bar the way had been torn off their hinges. They now added an uneven, potentially ankle-twisting layer to the floor and its piles of rubble and bone.

There was a soft glow from the far end of the hall. The light spilled down a flight of wide stairs and stopped between the narrow gaps of three stone sarcophagi. The carvings, facing away from the light, depicted faceless humanoids with their hands folded over their chests almost in prayer.

“That’s new,” lisped Kulata. “Not the light--that’s the stupid stick--but the ‘opened’ doors, the trash, those knock-off Osirian sarcophagi. I’m quite certain there used to be a real Osirian sarcophagi in one of the upstairs exhibits. This, this is just embarrassing.”

Stone slammed stone with a booming, hall-ringing echo. Everyone jumped. Halfway down the hall, the lid of one sarcophagi now laid face first on the floor. Dirt fell in clumps from its insides. Kulata shook their head.

“Embarrassing.”

But Moris’s breath turned shallow.

“We need to get out of here. Now.”

He took his own advice, backing away slowly, quietly.

“Fine, leave, but I’m getting that stupid stick.”

Gorvio continued straight toward the sarcophagi and the lit stairs behind. Moris stopped, crouching low. He sprang between Mathal and Tarvi, landing lightly at Gorvio’s ankles, and grabbed Gorvio by the shoulders. Gorvio jerked his neck over his shoulder to give Moris a look and tried prying his hands off.

Moris wouldn’t budge. They stood, tussling silently, without moving either forward or back.

Embarrassing, agreed Chelon.

A fine, white mist rose from the open sarcophagi. Moris and Gorvio froze. Mathal and Tarvi stepped into fight-or-flight-ing stance.

The mist suddenly surged down to the stone floor, splashing up in a jagged white flower. A tall, deathly pale Taldan with a shock of blood red hair stepped out from the mist in a black suit and blood red pair of nine-inch heels. Their gray-eyed gaze drank in the four, five.

“Vahn? Delver Vahn?”

The second stone lid fell but didn’t hit the floor. Vahn caught the heavy stone with a single hand. A second spout of mist geysered out of the central sarcophagi with an audible whoosh. A half-naked Varisian with olive skin faded to white crawled out of the mist explosion. A hypnotic, maze-like pattern of dark, interlocking tattoos covered their entire body.

“No, I have no idea who you’re supposed to be.”

Moris screamed. He did, or thought he did.

The newcomer smiled around a mouth of needle-sharp teeth and fangs.

“The Little Princeps comes to wake me.”

Moris let go of Gorvio. He ran.

Vahn and the other guy shared a razor-sharp grin. Vahn hurled the stone lid of the sarcophagi.

Gorvio dove to the side. Tarvi and Mathal dove for Moris. They fell short, but Mathal’s witchlocks snagged his ankles. Moris dropped. His palms slammed stone tile. Stone lid hurtled overhead. It shattered against the metal stairs.

Vahn and the other guy streaked between Tarvi and Mathal in a blur of suit and tattoo. They snatched Moris up so fast that they left the witchlocks grasping thin air. Their speed sucked the sound from Moris’s scream as they whisked him up the flight of stairs.

“Moris!”

They scrambled up after the kidnappers/murderers and followed them back through the halls, the distance between them growing through each doorway. The two blurs leapt from the veranda into the raining sky.

Tarvi roared and flew after them. Mathal and Gorvio could only watch from the ground as she threw herself into the three. They separated, Moris dropping limp toward the lawn.

Tarvi and Vahn dove. The other guy got to Tarvi first. They raked clawed hands across her back. She screamed.

“Tarvi!”

Mathal shoved Kulata into Gorvio’s hands and ran to catch her. Magic burned underfoot. It wasn’t hers.

A shimmering globe of force closed over Mathal. She slammed her fist against its curved face. It threw her down with equal, opposite force.

Furry, biting, clawing bodies writhed under her. Rats. They swarmed over her, squeaking shrill as they filled the sphere to bury her.

Mathal clamped her mouth shut over her building scream. Her nails gouged and tore and stabbed until all she could see and feel was red. Red and soft and wet. It coated thick every inch of skin and hair. She breathed it in. Blinked it out of her eyes.

The magic globe peeled open like a horrid flower. The rain pelted through the remains of the rats. Mathal shook, feeling nothing but red.

Gorvio, Kulata fixed to his belt by a horn, crouched beside Tarvi. She reclined in a muddy, bloody puddle, his knee supporting her back. He held a red-stained rag to her neck. 

Moris and the two were nowhere in sight. Neither was the third of their kind.

Mathal stuck her wand in the crook of Gorvio’s arm.

“What are you--”

“Giving you a head start. Take Tarvi. Hide.”

She stalked back toward the veranda, following her own footsteps in the grass. Even if she didn’t come back, as long as Kulata could get them to some advantageous room in the guildhouse, the two of them might have a chance against a wounded mist punk.

“Mathal!”

As unlikely as it seemed. There was nothing she could do but bring all pains she could.

Come on, Chelon. Let’s finish this.

Together.

\--/--

The metal clank of each descending step echoed down the long, stone hall. Mathal’s hand left a red trail on the railing that drew out the dust from the air, growing fuzzy in milliseconds. She clicked one black nail against the metal.

“Shields.”

Her aura didn’t respond.

“Haste.”

Nothing.

“Iron.”

Metal scales erupted down her skin, hair, and claws sloughing off the layer of pulped rat. She and Chelon grunted with approval. Ten minutes. She had ten minutes before the last mist punk ripped her like cheese. She cracked her neck and hexed herself at the bottom of the stairs.

Dry snickering echoed through the hall like a broom scratching. Mathal’s skin would’ve prickled if it hadn’t been magicked into metal snakeskin.

“I have to wonder, living one. Are you brave? Or are you stupid?”

The mist punk’s spell crackled inside her aura. A hand of force stabbed its claws into her brain. Mathal grunted and grabbed the rails with both hands. Chelon snapped each force finger in half, one by one. She relaxed her grip, bringing her hands to a ready stance.

The mist punk only laughed at their own spell’s failure. With all the echoes, she couldn’t pinpoint their position. She’d have to draw them out of their flying invisibility.

“Web,” she muttered.

“Do you like animals, living one?”

Three, six-foot flames burst up into the darkness. They burned out just as fast, leaving three growling hellhounds with white claws and burning eyes. They charged at her. She cursed.

Her claws tore through one underbelly each. Her witchlocks slammed the third so hard that the stone beneath them broke before their hell-bound bones. The summoned dogs burned away.

“Web,” she growled, stalking deeper into the darkness.

“The opposite of an animal-lover, I see. You should probably tell me your name, so I won’t have to call you Dog-Killer.”

“Gorvio.”

“Gorvio the Dog-Killer.”

Mathal stopped in front of the last sarcophagus. At the very least, she hadn’t walked right into that one.

“A pleasure. You may call me Jair--”

She flung the lid to the floor. Jair screeched over the shattering stone.

“Gorvio, you ignorant slut, you disappoint me.”

Steel stabbed through the scales of her back faster than she could turn. Six deathly pale, identical Taldans stood around her just out of arm’s reach. A gray star over a black shield dangled from their black-beaded rosary. Of course Jair had to be a cleric of some (probably evil) god.

The shared face of the mirror images grew increasingly twisted the further she reached back behind her. Her knuckles knocked soft, moist soil to the stone tile. Her fists closed over the dirt.

“All the magic is right here in front of you, Dog-Killer.”

She hurled the dirt at their screaming faces, but Jair and their images moved too fast. She threw up her forearm against their short swords. The real sword sheared sparks off her scales. Her back hit the soil wall, shaking down dirt.

All six swords stabbed again. Mathal dropped to a crouch. The real blade buzzed overhead and clanged against the back wall of the sarcophagus. Dirt rained down. Into her witchlocks.

Mathal’s hair scooped up every last clump and dumped them onto the recoiling clerics. The dirt passed through all but one streaked face. She threw herself at the real Jair with a savage roar.

Metal scraped metal as they deflected her every blow. But she couldn’t let up and give them a counterattack. She drove them back in a flurry of sparks.

Her toe stubbed stone. She yelped and stumbled over the fallen door. 

Jair’s blade stabbed through her collarbone.

Mathal and Chelon screamed. Sight and sound blurred with the pain. Jair forced her to her knees on the end of their blade. 

Her witchlocks writhed and lashed. Jair was faster. They caught them in a single, black-gloved hand. Jair yanked her hair, driving her deeper down their sword.

Mathal coughed and spat red. She could barely make out the real Jair despite being the only one left standing in front of her.

“Any last words, Dog-Killer?”

Her hands curled to fists, knuckles scraping stone.

“Web.”

Thick white strands, stronger than steel exploded out from the ground beneath her. They slammed into Jair, throwing the mist punk twenty feet off her. They caught Jair between many layers of sticky strings that pressed deep into the skin and held the mist punk fast.

Mathal lumbered to her feet, spilling red from her shoulder. She snatched off a few strands from the tunnel of web and pressed them to her raw wound. It still ached like she’d taken a hammer to the bone, but it was sealed--good enough.

A wave of searing darkness hurtled out from Jair’s end. Where it hit, it burned ice-cold. Mathal grunted and wiped off the red spray on the back of her hand. But it was only magic.

She ran, feet pounding the ground, all echoes muted by web. She launched herself at Jair. Her nails cut their scream short, breaking ribs on the way to their heart. Her other hand tore down the side of their throat. Her witchlocks wrapped around the mist punk’s head like a web cocoon. The web absorbed the soft, final snap.

Mathal half-leapt, half-staggered off the body. Her chest rose and fell with a heavy breath she could barely hear. Her heart beat softly in her ears.

The cleric bled red over the white web. But they did not remain in stillness. Jair’s head lifted, stretching a smile through the strands. White mist whooshed out from the trapping web, leaving nothing behind.

Mathal roared and tore at the passing cloud. She kept pace under it, raking and splattering red. But her claws grasped thin air.

The mist whooshed up through the ceiling web at the end of the tunnel where she couldn’t follow. Her roar choked. She collapsed onto her hands and knees. Her shoulders shook so violently that she could barely hold herself up. She spackled the web below with blood, sweat, and tears.

I am here, said Chelon.

She smiled wobbily through the mess on her face.

I hate this. I hate this.

What do you hate?

I could’ve stopped them. I could’ve ended this. If I wasn’t--

She slammed her fist against the web floor. Not a single strand broke. They bounced and bounced and bounced, smaller and smaller without a sound. She kept staring after they’d stilled, watching until her own body chilled.

The relic, said Chelon.

The relic.

There was that.

Mathal grabbed the web and pushed shakily to her feet. Her cooled joints clicked as she stood. She could see the light of that stupid stick at the end of the tunnel. She went toward it.


	21. Road to Horizon

Chapter 21: The Road to Horizon

Mathal didn’t have the strength to kick in the door of every bedroom on the second floor. She knocked instead.

“It’s Mathal.”

Her knuckles left bloody prints as she passed from door to door. Her left hand clutched a wooden stick, wand-like if not for the dark brass topper cast in the image of a griffon's head and mane. It glowed unbidden in the dark, but at least it had enough sense to keep the light no greater than a candleflame’s to avoid completely pissing her off.

“Prove it.”

Mathal squatted down to the crack under the door. Her witchlocks slithered through and turned the handle from the other side. Gorvio, coughing, crawled out from under the dust-blanketed bed with Kulata still tucked through his belt. He pulled Tarvi, unconscious and bloodied but no longer bleeding, onto the ratty carpet.

The griffon head flashed, lighting the room with the golden blaze of a thousand candles. Kulata hissed. Tarvi shook like a landed fish. Pink mist poured out from her ears, mouth, and nose. 

Mathal crossed the room and flung open the window. The mist dissipated in the rain-chilled darkness. The light died back down to the tiny glow. Mathal shut the window. Kulata continued to hiss. She threw the stick to the ground.

“You take the stick. I’ll take the devil.”

Gorvio passed her the borrowed wand along with Kulata.

“Did Tarvi get possessed while I was out?” she asked between charges.

“The two of you just went up against vampires. That stupid stick just saved Tarvi from damnation to a life of undeath. Probably.”

On the one hand, that solved a problem she hadn’t even known they’d had. On the other, it meant there were three vampires, four if Moris ‘survived,’ now wandering Westcrown at night in addition to all the shadows.

Mathal scooped Tarvi up in her arms. Her witchlocks flung the bedcover and its quilt of dust onto the floor. She laid Tarvi onto the sheet, filthy gear and all.

Gorvio turned the stick over in his hands. He held it aloft. Gave it a good shake. Whacked it against the wall. He had no idea how to use it.

“Kulata, does the stick control shadows?”

“What?” the devil snorted. “Red tits of the Godfiend, I hope that’s not why you’ve gone through this whole song and dance. Because, no, it only lights up and annoys the Hell out of them.”

Gorvio cursed that stupid stick and threw it down into the dust angel on the carpet. He stormed out of the room. The door screeched shut behind him.

“I miss having hands. My ears could’ve really used those right then.”

Mathal threw her backpack onto a set of drawers, knocking up another dust cloud, and sat on the edge of Tarvi’s bed. The mattress was as hard as a rock, but there were enough beds that they didn’t have to share rooms. She looked down at the not-turtle in her lap.

“Why’d you stop rubbing?”

She flicked them in the temple, which was much more bruisable than turtle shell.

“You can’t grant your own wishes.”

“That would require me to have a soul that wasn’t currently damned to Hell, which, if you were feeling charitable--”

“No. Get some rest. Maybe you’ll magically be less chewed out in the morning.”

“Would you sing me a lullaby?”

“I just answered that question.”

“Oh, fine. I’ll do it myself.”

“No! No, you’ll wake Tarvi.”

“We undead do not naturally sleep. If I don’t have a lullaby--”

“Fine. Just give me a sec.”

Mathal’s mother had been a great siren but never much of a singer. She racked her brains for the fleeting verses of the single, half-forgotten song from her childhood that still flickered at the back of her mind. The words filtered down to her in pieces. She couldn’t control her key or tune, but she sang softly enough that wouldn’t matter much:

“There's no escape  
I can't wait  
I need a hit  
Baby, give me it  
You're dangerous  
I'm loving it

“Too high  
Can't come down  
Losin' my head  
Spinnin' 'round and 'round  
Do you feel me now?”

Kulata’s snore sawed through the stillness of the room. Mathal jumped. Tarvi only turned onto the side facing away from them.

I like this song, said Chelon.

Mathal shrugged and nodded. She didn’t hate it.

\--/--

After three hours of tossing and turning on her rock of a mattress, Mathal got up. She left Chelon in his warm little nest of dusty blankets and wandered into the halls of Delvehaven’s second floor. The farthest door squeaked open to a huge, echoing chamber. The domed ceiling had been painted with a night sky where all the stars stretched and aligned into a road vanishing on a horizon. Wooden stairs led up to a balcony that circled under the fanciful sky. 

At the center of the floor was a raised, circular pool, ten feet in diameter. After all this time, the water remained perfectly still and clear, presumably thanks to the Azlanti glyphs glowing mint green in a ring around it. Gorvio sat on the edge of the pool, the light of that stupid stick almost entirely hidden in his backpack. He never once looked up from the water. While that could’ve easily been a quirk of his increasingly jackass personality, Mathal approached to check the pool for enchantment just in case. She dropped to one knee outside the ring of glyphs and clicked one fingernail to the stone tile.

“Let’s see.”

Her spell of magical detection failed. Gorvio fixed her with one his unreadable looks.

“What, the glyphs? They’re for the water elemental in here.”

Mathal stepped over the glyphs and grabbed the edge of the pool, her fingers over the surface of the water. The reflection trapped the vanishing road of stars in a simple circle.

“I don’t see the elemental.”

“It’s water, sentient water.”

“How do we get it out?”

Instead of answering, Gorvio snorted and half-grinned and shook his head.

“What.”

“I was trying to figure out the same thing.”

She could’ve punched him. He’d known they were after the same thing, yet he’d still gone out of his way to be an asshat. She considered just walking away. It was tempting, sorely tempting, even more than that sweet, solid punch. But that elemental clearly couldn’t free itself, and from what she’d seen of Gorvio, he wasn’t capable enough to free it by himself.

“Get off.”

“What?”

“Get off the pool. Go open a door--no, all of them.”

She herself unlatched the window-doors to the outdoor balcony on the far side of the chamber. She kicked them open, letting in the rain-chilled darkness of the real night. That would probably be more attractive to the elemental than the stale halls. She looked back. Gorvio had already opened all the other doors.

They walked back toward the pool from their opposite sides of the room. Mathal stopped just outside the ring of glyphs. He followed suit.

“I’m gonna open the binding.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“You’re welcome.”

She stomped on the nearest glyphed tile with all her strength. The stone block cracked but not through the glyph. She stomped again and again and again, chips of shrapnel flying up her shin.

“Need some help?”

“The magic’s strong,” she huffed, bracing herself on her knees, “but the glyph’s only surface deep. Just need to break the stone enough to knock it out of the ring.”

“I got it.”

He stepped up with his quarterstaff. It wasn’t enough. They took turns pounding the magically warded stone. They broke into a sweat, causing all the dust and chips afterward to cling and coat them gray. But, spitting and huffing, the last bridge broke between the stone block and the glyphed surface. The green glow of the whole ring winked out.

The entire chamber trembled around the pool. Mathal and Gorvio staggered back. Not a second too soon. Churning water burst up from the pool into a sixteen-foot pillar that roared like a storm. It pelted them with stinging drops that cut knife-sharp streaks through their mask of dust.

Slowly, carefully, Mathal picked up the piece of stone with the cut off glyph. She raised it up for the roaring pillar to sense, hopefully. Then chucked it with all her strength out the open window-doors.

The pillar seized up toward the painted sky. It surged along the curve of the dome up from the pool and arced down to the doors like a living bridge. It crashed onto the balcony but continued to spread to the edge, vanishing between the gaps of the stone railing. It left not a single drop behind.

Mathal let out an adrenaline-fuelled cackle and dashed to the railing. The elemental surged through the lawn below to the wall above the bluff. It crashed against the stone. It pulled back but only to gather its many waters. The elemental roared up into its churning pillar. Mathal’s nails scraped into the stone with her tightening grip. She howled the water onward. Gorvio whooped between cupped hands beside her.

The elemental threw itself into a vaulting arc over the wall. It dived down, faster and faster. It broke the waves of the sea with a mighty, many-winged splash. Mathal and Gorvio whooped and howled like dogs until the last wing fell.

They pulled back from over the edge of the railing without looking at each other. Mathal settled onto her elbows, eyes fixed on the sea. The waves were too choppy to reflect any stars.

“You got your stick. What’re you gonna do with it?”

“I’m gonna take it to Fiosa. She’s our leader. She’ll know what to do with it.”

Right, Gorvio was a cog in someone’s machine.

“What are you and Tarvi gonna do?”

“I don’t speak for Tarvi, but once I get paid, I’m out of here. Goodbye, Westcrown. Hell, all of Cheliax. Hello, anywhere with less systematic oppression.”

“You should meet Fiosa before you go.”

“Why?”

“She’s an escaped slave who frees slaves,” he said, meeting her eyes. “That stays on the down low, by the way.”

“Oh.”

Everything clicked into place. They needed the shadows out of Westcrown because that left only Chelish Hellknights on patrol and their human lack of dark-piercing eyes. Night would become the best and easiest time to sneak away. Not a bad machine at all.

“How do you afford to keep running?”

Gorvio--snorting, half-grinning, and shaking his head--went right back to being a slightly less punchable jerkface.

Mathal walked away.

\--/--

Chelon had two new spells for her. One turned earth to a quagmire like her own witch’s hex but one deeper and far more deadly for it. The other dispelled magic. Mathal’s fists curled bitterly, but she didn’t get the chance to dwell.

The earth shook under her feet. She cradled Chelon to her chest and ran through the haze of dust shaken into the hallway to Tarvi and Kulata’s room. Tarvi stood frozen on the bed. She looked out over the fallen chest of drawers through the window.

The morning sky had turned blood red, colored by the spiral of Hellish fire that burned up from the city to the clouds. The stones of Delvehaven scraped and groaned as the earth continued to shake. The glass rattled out of the window and smashed to the floor. An undercurrent of noise like the ocean’s surf washed into the room. They were screams, sirens, and alarms from the distance. They came from the southwest, from the direction of Aberian’s Folly.

Mathal and Tarvi looked at each other in silence. This was not the Orphanage’s ordinary, stealthy modus operandi. This was an act of war. Mathal didn’t know who was fighting who, but right now, it didn’t matter. With an attack on that scale, the collateral damage was unimaginable.

“I’ve to go help.”

“I’m going with you.”

Kulata wisely said nothing from where they’d rolled onto the carpet. Gorvio, covered in dust, braced himself against the doorway. He met their eyes, coughing, and nodded. They left Delvehaven in fast and terrible silence.


	22. Thank Gods for Clerics

Chapter 22: Thank Gods for the Clerics

Tarvi, Mathal, and Gorvio ran down the riverwalk. Ships sailed past down the river and into the sea, fleeing the ports en masse. To the southwest, a ball of fire and smoke rose into a mushroom-shaped cloud over Aberian’s Folly. As the cloud unfurled across the red dawn sky, it opened eyes of hellfire and bared teeth of white-hot ash, leering, laughing, and lording over Westcrown.

The cloud dispersed but the red of the sky only deepened. Five whirling, raging pillars of flame spiraled up to the clouds and rained black soot upon Westcrown like tornadoes summoned from Hell itself, but at least they were stationary. For now.

As the three crossed from the riverwalk into the outer districts, the streets were deathly quiet. The people of Westcrown stood outside their doors in the black soot rain, watching. Families held their children. Lovers held their partners. The old and alone were not alone in this. Their god had abandoned them, and they had sold their soul to Hell. It was only natural that Hell had come calling.

Tarvi, Mathal, and Gorvio didn’t have a moment for silence. They crossed into the wealthier districts and into chaos. Here were the screams, sirens, and alarms over the distant roar of the five hellfire tornadoes. Groups of dottari ran toward burning wreckage and collapsed buildings. They dragged people from the rubble and ferried them in stretchers to red tents in the streets, makeshift temples of Asmodeus.

The more prosperous the district, the more Hellknights, and they’d brought their barricades with them. Entire groups of the Hellknights and the dottari stopped their rescue efforts to shout and argue over the heatwaves and cacophony. They had no attention to spare the civilian rescuers nor aid to offer the clerics.

The three sped by groups arguing guards only to stop at the sight of a cleric with steel-gray curls and a sharp, angular face. Vesta, covered in sweat, ash, and debris, wiped her eyes clear on the back of her forearm. The four ran to each other, and she threw her arms around all three ex-actors at once. Before they could step back, she dragged them all into the relative privacy of a brick-blackened, soot-swept alley.

“Thank Asmodeus, you’re not incinerated! But how are you not incinerated?” she shouted over the deep whirring of the tornadoes.

Mathal, Chelon, Kulata, and Gorvio froze and shared a collective look. 

“We left the Folly to get drinks,” shouted Tarvi, who somehow had the presence of mind to recall the white lie Gorvio had dropped one seeming lifetime ago.

“I hate to say it, but I hope you haven’t completely sobered up yet.”

“If you’ve got a wish--”

Tarvi clamped her hand over Kulata’s mouth.

“No, we’re here to help.”

“Your new friend there wouldn’t betray you to an invasion team from Hell, would they?”

“Not if they don’t want me wearing their skull as a boxing glove,” shouted Mathal.

“Right, well, Arvanxi was apparently powering his estate off a pit fiend--”

“Liebdaga.”

“You knew that too?” shouted Gorvio. “What else are you not telling us?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what you know and what you don’t know! But I can get you direct access to all the lovely tidbits in my brain for the bargain price of--”

Tarvi reapplied her hand.

“Sorry, Vesta. Please continue.”

“Someone sabotaged whatever kept Pit Fiend Liebdaga imprisoned here on the Material Plane, but instead of going back to Hell, Liebdaga’s been importing more devils. If we don’t shut down their portal, we’ll be looking at a full scale invasion by the end of the week.”

“Take us to the Folly.”

They weaved behind Vesta through the burning, blackened remains of the wealth of Westcrown into a vast clearing. The morning’s explosion had flattened the manor and all surrounding estates, pummelling them down into a crater one hundred and eighty feet across and thirty feet deep centered over what had once been the Folly. The five hellfire tornadoes blazed five hundred feet into the air over five equidistant points on the crater’s perimeter, the edges of a pentagram. The flames roared and bent the air over the crater into ocean-like waves.

Tarvi, Mathal, and Gorvio climbed up onto a soot-blackened ridge of rubble and melted rock at the crater’s edge and stared. Even without the oppressive heat and deafening roar, the otherworldly sight was enough to command their silence. It was a glimpse of the future, the one they had to prevent. Mathal was also pretty sure that these were exhaust flames, the Hellish power leached from the pit fiend now freed from their servitude but lacking all direction. Once Liebdaga got this power back under control, they’d be unstoppable.

“Good luck!” Vesta shouted from behind, waving as she ran back to tend to the casualties.

Mathal set Chelon on her shoulder and squeezed Tarvi’s hand. She was about to call her friends to action when three flaming arrows shot through the air. Tarvi flung out her hand. Three missiles of smoking ice shattered against the arrows, dropping them mid-flight.

A six-foot devil on wings of black ash sneered down from over the crater. From the ground, two bearded devils wielding saw-toothed glaives flanked a ten-foot devil who merged the forms of scorpion and mantis with that of a withered cadaver.

“I call ol’ Boney,” shouted Mathal, cocooning the withdrawn Chelon in the thick of her witchlocks.

“I’m on the flyer,” shouted Tarvi.

“So what, I’m just supposed to take two of these guys at once?”

“If you need help, tap out.”

The flyer loosed a second volley of three. Three ice missiles absorbed their impact, shattering. Mathal didn’t stick around to watch the arrows fall. She gave the charging bearded devils a wide berth, circling around to Boney.

Its giant, skeletal torso turned nearly a hundred and eighty degrees on the narrow joint between thorax and abdomen to face her. Its skull, humanoid save for the killer mandibles, cocked parallel to the ground as its mantis-like legs scuttled its abdomen around to face her as well. Its ten-foot scorpionic tail glistened with venom over its shoulder.

“Damn shame you gotta die,” she muttered in Aklo.

Boney vanished. She swore and hexed the ground. The earth turned to quagmire around her, but as she looked for tell-tale footprints, two scything claws stabbed beneath her ribcage and hauled her kicking and screaming into the air. Her witchlocks surged up and slammed into Boney’s now visible face.

Boney, barely phased, snapped down over her head with its mandibles. She caught the segments of its jaw, arms shaking with the strain. Its stinger lanced through her back. She roared in pain but her body absorbed the insectoid poison.

The claws dug deeper into her flesh. She broke into a cold sweat and hexed herself. Its stinger jabbed into her shifting body, shearing raw tears into the forming tissues. Mathal screamed, but she pushed back. 

Chitin cracked under her twisting nails. She wrenched and snapped the mandibles in opposite directions, tearing them from Boney’s face.

Boney shrieked with the trill of a thousand locusts and stabbed through her back. Mathal spewed blood. Her hair surged up through the splatter and slammed its broken, shrieking head.

It wasn’t enough. Its claws pulled the sides of her ribcage in opposite directions. Mathal screamed red and grabbed its arms, straining now to keep her ribs from being ripped out from under her. As the stinger reared back to strike her neck, she spat a desperate, garbled prayer.

“Need for...speed.”

Magic surged into her breaking body and everything slowed. Mathal shoved her arms down against Boney’s and hefted her body up off its scything claws. Her witchlocks seized around its sailing tail. Its stinger grazed the side of her neck.

Boney’s tail jerked back, yanking her between its shearing claws. They ripped red crescents from her arms. Mathal kept them crossed in guard but pressed her luck.

“Iron.”

Metal scales erupted over her skin. Boney’s claws scythed under her guard, but they only scraped a burst of sparks out of her. Mathal cackled wildly. As Boney’s tail jerked her locks, she vaulted over its head straight for the stinger. Her metal-cast nails ripped through the chitin, flinging the pointed tip into the nearest hellfire tornado.

Boney shrieked, spinning helter-skelter in the air. Mathal spun straight onto one claw, grunting red as it pierced her side from the front out the back. She grabbed onto the arm to keep from being flung off into the flames herself. The second claw bounced off her metal, spraying sparks.

Boney kept on spinning, but Mathal fixed her eyes on the ground. As it reached the height of its arc, she shoved herself free of the claw. Her witchlocks pulled the devil down with her. Its own momentum sent Boney catapulting into the quagmire.

They both landed back-first into the grasping earth, but Boney sunk while the swamp kept Mathal afloat. Her eyes opened, alight with curiosity.

“Eat.”

The quagmire shuddered. Then it obeyed. The earth sucked the devil down into its crushing mass, burying the shriek alive.

The swamp bubbled the connecting strands of her hair back up to the surface. Mathal ended the hex with a shift of thought and sat up on her knees on solid ground. The winged devil dropped at her feet, causing her to fall back onto her butt. They were dead, riddled with fast-melting ice.

Tarvi and Gorvio staggered over, collapsing on either side of her.

“You still have that wand, right?” Gorvio shouted hoarsely.

It was almost out of charges, but it was all the healing they had. Mathal set Chelon back on her shoulder and dispensed with the healing. She considered tossing the drained wand into the flaming vortex.

“Mathal, hustle!” shouted Gorvio.

She cursed him under her breath but fell into line beside Tarvi.

“Hey, is your magic back?”

“Yours too? I think it might be this place,” shouted Tarvi. “The magic’s so heavy here. It could be making up for what we lost.”

Only temporary, a sobering thought. Something small but tangible died inside Mathal. She blinked hard through the heat and the ash and the vacuum in her chest.

Let’s not let it go to waste, Chelon.

She pressed her palms together. Her aura flared pale yellow as it armored. She held Chelon to her chest. As they descended to the ruins at the center of the pit, the turtle sunk into her aura.

The only part of the manor to have escaped sheer incineration was the ground floor of the eastern wing. The mounds of its rubble stacked high and smoked like trash-burning chimneys. Here and there, a stone wall stood, its melted faces glassy as black mirrors. Fallen walls formed a new bridge across the indoor, now outdoor, garden. A shadow flickered at the corner of Mathal’s eye. She stopped in front of Tarvi and Gorvio, sinking into a crouch, a spell in her fingers.

A small silhouette in the low smoke clouds and black ash rain flew up from below. They landed lightly on the far end of the bridge and made a back-handed throw. Mathal snatched the flat, whirring missile from the air. The Harrow card depicted a crowned rabbit with a broken sword.

An almond brown halfling with a spiky crown of sandy hair walked out from the clouds. His narrow brown eyes, dark as the cardback, lit on the two ex-Orphans.

Abe!

Mathal ran and slid into a tackling hug, tearing up with her and Chelon’s combined feeling for their long-lost family. Abe squeezed her back and waved at Tarvi.

“Get in here, you walking dead.”

Tarvi burst into tears laughing. She flung herself at Mathal and their old quartermaster. Gorvio approached but kept two yards between himself and the reunion. Tarvi and Mathal pulled away, leaving a gap in their circle for Gorvio.

“Bad news first,” said Abe in Common. “Amaya hasn’t taken your ‘death’ well. At all. You really should’ve told her you were just jumping ship.”

Mathal cursed in Aklo.

“I would if I’d planned it.”

“You’re joking.”

“We were sent to ally with rape cultists.”

Abe’s deadpan face twisted with unadulterated disgust.

“I know, right?” said Tarvi. “We’re not forgiving Janiven or Ghontas or the Drovenges anytime soon.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Janiven’s here? Is she the one that freed the pit fiend?”

“No. You guys were way out of the loop, huh?”

“Tell us everything,” said Mathal.

Vitti had freed the pit fiend because of course that [redacted-dacter] had. The noble Council, spearheaded by Vassindio Drovenge, had tired of being subject to the incompetent Arvanxi. Only Drovenge wasn’t satisfied with simply freeing himself of Arvanxi’s rule. He told the Council that he would orchestrate Arvanxi’s assassination. He assassinated half the heads of the Council in the process, including his own children.

The Orphanage, [redacted] Vitti, had failed to help Drovenge assassinate all of them. Those who survived now readied for all out war, a war in which a pit fiend would be a tide-turning ally. They simply had to entrap Liebdaga in a contract and were now in race to do so.

“I’m here to cut down any non-Drovenge agents, but I’m starting to question our, my, leadership.”

“Questioning enough to let us go?” asked Tarvi.

“Only a fool picks a fight with the dead.”

In a weird sequence of deja vu, Abe led Tarvi, Mathal, and Gorvio across the bridge and into the ruins of the banquet hall. The chandeliers had shattered to floor atop an H-shaped pile of ash. To the west, the a single wall still stood. At its center loomed a towering black stone door, six feet wide and fourteen feet tall. Abe pointed at its lock, a complex knot of interwoven metal spirals embedded at the center of the door itself.

“Rewind.”

The spirals slithered round and back into the stone, baring a stone circle inscribed with a pentagram. Mathal took Tarvi’s hand and she took Gorvio’s. Mathal reached for the circle. Abe caught her wrist. He held out a blackthorn wand handle-first.

“Don’t die, kid.”

“Thanks.”

She pressed her palm to the pentagram and the world turned under her feet.


	23. Hubris Is My Middle Name

Chapter 23: Hubris Is My Middle Name

Mathal clutched her stomach against a wave of nausea as the door deposited them in a large, damp cavern. At first glance, the ceiling appeared with hanging cobwebs. Then the spicy, nose and throat pickling scent of mold hit. Those weren’t cobwebs.

To the west, the cavern widened and deepened into a shallow, sunken pit that formed a mostly natural amphitheater. Someone had installed drains at the bottom of the pit. As they walked over the grating, Mathal could hear the rush of water below.

“Well, we can’t have that,” said a low, husky voice that filled the air with hair-raising magic.

A single handbell clanged bright and sharp in the distance. Mathal and Gorvio clapped their hands over their ears. Tarvi, holding Kulata, froze and winced. It stopped and clanged, stopped and clanged, all without an echo despite the smooth, curved stone of the amphitheater. Instead, the ringing built in waves with every clang inside their heads.

Mathal’s older, more muscular, and shorter-haired relative walked through the gate on the far side of the amphitheater. He had changed out his servant’s livery for tattered, olive green robes and a tall, floppy hat. He’d painted his face, chest, and the backs of his arms in black whorls of unspeakable glyphs. A silver servant’s bell mottled with black tarnish hung from a thin cord around his neck.

“It doesn’t look like your new master cares as much about cleanliness as your last one,” Tarvi paused to low-five Mathal, “so why don’t you just let us through? Or escort us, whatever you’re more comfortable with.”

“I would, but I have a Coin to earn, so I tell you what: I’ll fight the runt first. You and your friend and your devil will have...seven minutes and fifty-seven seconds to reconsider your allegiances and get the Hell out of here.”

Gorvio and Tarvi both stepped up in front of Mathal.

“Oh, look, even my mortals know a bad deal when they hear one.”

“Yeah, I may not like Mathal as a person, but as an ally--”

“Get ready to have your butt served up on a silver platter, Major...No mo.”

Gorvio gave Tarvi’s shoulder a reassuring pat.

“We’ll work on those burns later.”

Their support warmed Mathal to her turtle core, but she shouldered past them anyway.

“Thanks, but no thanks. Crosael’s my big [redacted] brother. I have to take care of this myself.”

Tarvi grabbed her arm.

“No, Mathal. No, you don’t. This, right now, is so much bigger than some family squabble. Westcrown’s on the edge of apocalypse. AGAIN. Last time we turned to Hell for salvation. If we don’t stop this now, we’re going to BE Hell.”

“Then go without me.”

Mathal yanked her arm free and shoved her palm toward Crosael. The ground under the Orphan initiate exploded up into thick, grasping waves of quagmire. But Crosael’s face only split ear-to-ear with a toothy grin. His aura flared olive green over the painted whorls and the hungry swamp dried back to stone under his feet.

“Oh, you really take after her, don’t you,” he said in Aklo.

Mathal snarled over the ripping and stitching of her body under her hex. Crosael laughed and pointed to the ground under her feet.

“Eat.”

The earth turned against her. Hostile waves of swamp rose up under her feet and dragged her down into suffocating dirt. Mathal held her breath against the scream of primal terror building at her core and clawed at the still-liquid earth. Crosael’s bell clanged and clanged and clanged in her ears, beating impossibly over her pounding pulse.

The quagmire went solid all around her. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breath. She’d entered her grave alive. Chelon shrieked with every living fear and regret at the face of death. And so did Mathal. They screamed over the clang and toll in her ears. Mathal shut her eyes and clenched her fists. Stone broke between her fingers. 

Magic flooded out from her core into every fiber of her being. She burst free from the earth in a rain of blood and stone and threw herself down at Crosael with a toll-breaking roar.

Her nails raked deep across the side of his face, but he turned her witchlocks aside with one arm and braced against her second clawing with the other. Mathal opened her mouth and jumped back, spewing him with a cone of all the scorpion devil’s poison she’d absorbed.

Crosael staggered back, gagging.

“Ugh, you spit in my mouth.”

They stalked each other in a slow circle, silent save for the clang, clang, clanging of Crosael’s [redacted] bell. Mathal couldn’t cast at him if was just going to absorb her spell and throw it back. That left her with a single target.

“Iron.”

Her aura flared and so did Crosael’s. His skin turned to metal snakescale under his glowing whorls. He cackled wildly.

“Making up for all those missed birthdays, I see. Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Crosael charged at her. His nails raked across her arm and sapped off her heat. Her wounded arm went numb as she fended off the barrage of metal claws by hair and nail. His unrelenting strikes shred the air between them to hissing ribbons. He forced her back, cutting deeper with every hit.

Mathal’s back slammed into the amphitheater wall. Nails stabbed between her ribs and into her gut. Chelon screamed and Mathal sputtered red. Strength and heat bled out in waves around Crosael’s claws. Even her witchlocks fell limp over her face. Crosael leaned in, grinning by her ear.

“Looks like we both underestimated you.”

“Alright, play time’s over,” shouted Tarvi.

At the darkening corner of Mathal’s eye, Tarvi shoved her palms over her head. Roaring water geysered up from every drain in an explosion of heavy metal grating. Icy waves surged against Mathal and Crosael, shoving the siblings apart. 

Black ink bled off of Crosael’s borrowed scales in murky trails. He cursed in Aklo.

“I’m melting. That’s just perfect.”

He threw Tarvi a bird and vanished from sight. 

The water continued to rise. Mathal, numbed to the bone, flailed her unfeeling limbs. She sank like a wooden-armed, peg-legged rock.

She and Chelon watched as though from a distance as Gorvio swam through the ink-clouded water and hooked her under the armpits. They broke the surface. Mathal spat and hacked up the water while Gorvio’s chattering teeth sluiced it out. He grabbed the new wand from her backpack and shoved it into her hand.

“We all want to kill him, Tarvi, but hypothermia’s a slow death,” he shouted across the flooding amphitheater. “Can we take it down a notch, please?”

The water stopped rising, but held onto its height as Tarvi swam over, her eyes burning with icy death.

“Ma-thal!”

If Gorvio hadn’t been keeping her afloat, Mathal would’ve sunk back below the waves, voluntarily. Instead, she finished charging and tucked the wand away. Kulata hopped up salmon-like to watch from Gorvio’s backpack.

“What the Hell were you thinking? That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever had to sit back and watch! How could you put your [redacted] pride ahead of every single person in Westcrown?”

“Family--”

Tarvi slapped her hand against the water, spraying Mathal, Gorvio, and Kulata.

“Family my [redacted] butt! That was a waste of time, magic, and almost your [redacted] life.”

“Ok, got it, I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t get it. I can’t be friends with someone who’s so [redacted] irrational. After this is all over, we’re through. Got it?”

The ice water ran hot from her eyes.

“I--yeah.”

“Good. Then let’s stop this stupid apocalypse.”

The water spiraled under them, churning up a roaring spray. Mathal, Kulata, and Gorvio yelped as the undercurrent dragged them back below the raging waves. 

Swirling vortexes funnelled the water down the many drains and sucked them into the churning spiral. Mathal and Chelon screamed a stream of bubbles. An arm broke the surface of the water. Then a leg. Her head.

The last whirling wave washed her toward the wall of the amphitheater. She slid to a stop inches from the stone. Gorvio and Kulata went spinning by. Her witchlocks snapped out and snagged them fast in their tracks. She slid them over to her side of the amphitheater, Tarvi picking herself up at the other.

“I need a favor,” she whispered.

“I literally just saved your life.”

“You know my price, but I could cut you a special deal, three wishes for one--”

“How do I fix this?”

“Are you joking?”

“I never joke. Tarvi’s more than just a friend. We suffered together. She’s the only reason I’m here right now instead of on the other side of the apocalypse. She’s a best friend.”

Gorvio climbed up onto his hands and knees, shaking his head.

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before showing her exactly how selfish you are.”

“Not helpful.”

“I disagree,” said Kulata. “If I’d given more thought to my past actions and their inevitable fallouts, perhaps I wouldn’t have ended up a head.”

“Really?”

“No, that’s purely wishful thinking. I’d never change myself for anyone but...myself.”

Gorvio set Kulata back on his pack and offered Mathal a hand.

“Look, this isn’t a problem that Tarvi has that you can just solve. This is a problem with you. As a person. But if you don’t think it’s a problem...”

He helped her to her feet and shrugged. If it wasn’t a problem to Mathal herself, then there was nothing to solve. 

It was all too much to think about, especially with Tarvi standing at the far door of the amphitheater, tapping her foot. Mathal followed after Tarvi and Gorvio, a dull ringing in her ears.


	24. An Army to a Nonbeliever

Chapter 24: An Army to a Nonbeliever

Mathal and Gorvio followed Tarvi down a damp stone staircase to a long, black hall. Purple light flickered from pillars of rough, purple crystal standing freely along either side. Muddy, dark water covered the floor, forming a murky mirror beneath their feet. Water and stone dropped away past the pillars and fell without a sound.

The water drowned the sound of their steps, rippling it out in perfect, silent circles. Their tiny waves never broke the reflections, nor did they make any difference in the level of water. Mathal liked it even less than she had Arvanxi’s other secret, magic lair.

“What is this place?”

The infernal thing even dropped her voice to a hush.

“I’m willing to bet it’s a service tunnel, but don’t quote me on that,” said Kulata.

“Thanks for that uninformed opinion,” said Gorvio.

Tarvi stopped, one hand over the hilt of her dagger. 

A dull clanking echoed down from the north end of the ‘service tunnel.’ A high-pitched wail followed, setting every crystal pillar a-quiver in its wake. Purple lightning arced over the dark water and bridged two pillars before winking out with a thunderous crack. Then it was everywhere at anytime, purple light bridges winking and thundering in and out of sight.

Tarvi took a step back, hand well off her very metal dagger. But Gorvio stepped up, leaving her beside Mathal. Tarvi refused to look at her--not that Mathal could’ve met her eyes if she had. While the killer purple was too loud to even attempt conversation, the not-silence was somehow more awkward.

Gorvio clapped his hands in front of his sternum. Dark, smoky wisps billowed out from his aura and over the water. They gathered around him in a sphere of cloud with a five-foot radius. He beckoned Tarvi and Mathal in close, then hooked his arms through theirs and pulled them closer--away from the wisp-leaking edges of the sphere.

As he stepped, they stepped together down the mud water road. The first two purple pillars crackled and sparked. Kulata closed their eyes. Purple lightning arced from both pillars. Blue-green lightning burst from Tarvi and Mathal’s sides of the cloud. The two mismatched pairs met with a crash and boom. 

Mathal heard even less than before, only a faint, internal ringing that turned her stomach, but no one had been fried alive. Only seventeen more pillar pairs of deafening not-talking to go.

The three broke apart as soon as they reached the purple-lit room at the end of the tunnel. Two huge glass tanks stood on either side of the room, each filled with muddy, boiling water. The steam rose into a massive tangle of metal pipes, struts, and violet crystal tubes that fed into the walls and completely obscured the ceiling.

At the center of the room, the floor and walls dropped away for twenty feet in all directions. A five-foot-wide, circular walkway surrounding a pool of the same muddy, boiling water that steamed into the open air and blackened the metal and crystal above.

Tarvi mouthed something and pointed at the twisting face of a metal and crystal valve glowing with a much softer purple on the wall by the eastern doors. A chalky, towering, and bespectacled figure pried a rod against the valve, forcing its face counterclockwise with a slow, strained turn. Vitti.

Every fiber of Mathal’s being coiled and tensed to run and claw them to death. Instead, she turned her head, stiffly toward Tarvi and Gorvio. From the way she mouthed and gestured, Tarvi appeared to have a plan. At the end of the hand-spiel, Tarvi and Gorvio both looked at the Mathal.

Chelon? Did you get any of that?

I saw something about hands.

She shook her head. The two frowned. Gorvio shrugged. Tarvi nodded. She gave Mathal a hand up in ‘wait.’ She and Gorvio snuck off behind either of the two boiling tanks.

Now I see a thumb up.

Yeah. Huh.

This was her plan. Only better.

Mathal muttered a word she couldn’t hear and clicked her heels. Magic surged under her feet. She ran to the walkway and leaped twenty-feet alongside the boiling mud to the eastern doors, clawing for the exposed back of Vitti’s neck.

One hand raked red, but the other slammed against metal rod. Her witchlocks rushed at Vitti’s snarling face, but they dove to the side, one hand clamped to their bleeding neck. When they pulled it away, the wounds had closed.

Vitti’s face twisted with a patronizing grin. Their mouth moved, but their aura didn’t flare with magic. They were...monologuing.

Neither Tarvi nor Gorvio had sprung an attack yet, so Mathal had to assume she was supposed to buy them time. She slid up from her crouch to standing, letting herself visibly lose her killer tension. She nodded from time to time.

Vitti’s self-satisfied smirk never uncurled. They hefted their rod around like a pointer, occasionally jabbing it at Mathal. Fortunately, they never stopped long enough that she was forced to respond and inevitably give up the ruse.

Ice crept quietly behind Vitti. They only stopped yammering when it spread under their boots. They snarled and stepped into the air because of course they could fly. They swung their pointer toward Mathal with a skin-prickling surge of magic.

The leaking steam from the pipes overhead thinned and condensed into a thousand of scything blades. They descended on Vitti, scalding as they slashed. No red could escape the deep-cauterized cuts.

Vitti slammed to the ice but managed to get out a single snap of their fingers. Stone burst up through the ice and curved in the air, deflecting the steam blades in showers of sparks. Vitti threw themself off the ice into the shell of stone, and it wrapped closed around them.

Mathal’s witchlocks braced against the floating sphere of stone. She muttered and flexed her fingers, sheathing them in magicked metal scales. She gave Vitti a tilted grin whether they could see it or not and set her nails to the stone.

Her witchlocks shoved her full speed over the slick ice. Her metal nails ripped rock from the underbelly of the sphere.

Tarvi wasted no time with the opening. Three ten-foot spears of ice lanced through the gouges.

Mathal spun out and slid to a stop on her hands and knees. The soles of her boots bumped against the pipe-cluttered wall.

Red ran down two of the three spears. The stone crumbled to dust over Vitti, impaled through the upper and lower torso. Their metal rod laid still on the icy floor.

Together, they’d laid a top-tier Orphan out so high but so low. None of them had been injured, much less brought to the brink of death themself. Mathal’s gut curdled.

The slippery ice evaporated under her into shining, crystal flecks that floated up past her. Tarvi held out a hand, clear blue eyes fixed on the red metal of the eastern doors. Mathal took it with a thanks that went unseen as well as unheard.

The doors swung open at the slightest touch despite a complete lack of handles, keyholes, and hinges. Stairs descended to a stone archway that opened to a chamber roofed by smoke and walled by curtains of churning fire. A ten-foot-wide, thirty-foot-long, H-shaped banquet table that floated five feet above the floor, a magical window to a black cobblestone plaza. A legion of armored devils marched through the city streets and vanished into a black iron cityscape of towers and spires under a red horizon.

“Ah, the legions of Hell are mobilizing once more. I hope your Infernal is better than your Azlanti.”

Kulata’s singsong voice pierced through the ringing in Mathal’s ears. It was the only sound in the room, meaning--Mathal stuck her hand into the warm, churning fire. The curtain parted, pulling apart the cage of smoke and flame.

Walls of molten gold bubbled up from the fifty-foot sides of a pentagram-shaped pool and rose to a vaulted ceiling from which hung an interlocked mass of gold-cast devils, fighting and desperately reaching out for escape with unmoving fingers. Two shapes, one suited darkly and the other canvased in black tattoos, floated under the farthest reaching hand. Vahn, Delver Vahn, snapped it off the devil and passed it to their companion. The other vampire waved the golden hand down at them.

“Wait, aren’t you allergic to sunlight? This place blew at the crack of dawn. How’d you get past literally everyone?” asked Gorvio.

“Locks mean nothing when you can just--” Vahn poofed in and out of a cloud of white mist as the two floated down.

“Handy, that.”  
Tarvi held up one hand.

“Wait, wait, wait! You guys owe me at least one last question for surviving last time.”

They stopped across the banquet table and shrugged.

“Why are you even here? You’re vampires. What could you possibly get from a bunch of soul-tormenting devils? You’re on opposite sides of the afterlife--well, I guess it’s more of a spectrum. All I’m saying is, if you’re here to stop the invasion, then we’re on the same side. We know last time you killed our friend, tried to kill me, and mostly succeeded, but we’re willing to put that aside. So, what do you say?”

“I count three questions.”

Vahn flipped the table.

Mathal, having already hexed herself in the event that negotiations went south, was ready. Her still-iron claws cut up and down her body in a vertical cross and severed the H straight through its horizontal. The halves crashed to the magical window floor in a violent spray of wood splinter and silver cutlery, and cracked the ‘glass.’ The entire floor went blood red.

Vahn’s flying kick slammed into Mathal’s chest. She staggered back, but her witchlocks deflected the next one. Vahn spun back into an aerial guard. It took them less than a half-second to realize Mathal stayed grounded not out of strategy but for lack of ability. They straightened with a growing grin that immediately twisted into a snarl of unadulterated disgust.

Golden light exploded into every corner of the chamber. The two vampires shrieked like banshees, throwing their arms over their eyes.

“Begone, vampires!” said Gorvio, brandishing the relic in both hands.  
Mathal pressed the attack, for emphasis. Her witchlocks slammed into Vahn’s unprotected stomach, grappling and slinging them down to the red tile. Mathal leapt onto her pray, nails gouging for arteries.

The vampire bled red. Then caught both wrists in iron grips.

“Tell me this doesn’t just ‘annoy’ vampires, too.”

Vahn flipped Mathal off of them, throwing her into the air. Her witchlocks dragged across the splinter and tile and dropped her to a crouch. The back of Vahn’s nine-inch heel pounded the back of her skull to the ground.

Mathal roared and clawed at the vampire, but Vahn was as fluid as the [redacted] air they floated in. Her nails missed by a hair’s breadth. She needed reach.

Vahn spun into another head-splitting kick. Mathal not only dove to the side but also ran back into the banquet debris and the light. Vahn followed with a kick and smashed the table further underfoot. She threw up her arms and cursed in Aklo.

Mathal’s aura flared pale yellow, invisible in the golden light. But the buzz was unmissable. The five-foot sphere around her exploded into a raging swarm of wasps. They descended onto Vahn’s nearest foot.

The vampire roared in pain and flew back from her. Mathal growled back in frustration. Her feet lifted off the floor on the backs of the wasps.

“[Redacted]. Yes.”

Mathal flew up at Vahn in her swarm of wasps, cackling wildly. The vampire never slowed. They blocked her every strike, but they couldn’t stop the stinging wasps. Every kick they made first crossed through the swarm.

Vahn flew back with a ragged growl. They vanished from sight.

“Maze, perhaps we should consider a truce.”

Their voice echoed through the vaulted chamber.

Mathal sank down to her sweaty, bloody teammates. The first three shells of her wasps had disintegrated back into her aura. The next three would only last her thirty-six more seconds. Thirty-five.

“No, we stick to Sivanshin’s orders,” came the second, echoing voice.

“The devils aren’t going to parley with us looking like this.”

“Then we bring in Silana.”

“What about these three?”

“Vahn, you did just tell us your entire plan,” said Kulata. “You know, if you’re looking to secure Liebdaga’s aid, perhaps we could make a--”

Gorvio tucked that stupid stick under his arm to flick Kulata’s temple.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Vahn. “Give us the devil, and we’ll let you leave this place alive.”

“Ahah, kindly ignore that offer.”

“Why?” asked Mathal, over her disappearing buzz.

“I think they want to use me as a bargaining chip in their parley. Infernal Duke Liebdaga and I didn’t part on particularly good terms and, judging by what they did to the rest of my body, they might still hold a grudge after all these centuries.”

“Are you on good terms with anyone?” asked Gorvio.

“No deal,” said Tarvi.

“Very well. Maze, let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time on these bloodbags.”

“Not quite.”

The vampire’s voice had descended, coming from above and between Mathal and Tarvi. Mathal, burning through the last shell of her wasps, jumped into the air and sent her witchlocks surging toward the voice in the cloud of her swarm. The buzzing cocoon of hair and stingers.

As soon as her feet touched down, she hexed the ground into quagmire. She slammed her witchlocks down, but white mist flowed out between the strands and vanishing wasps. Mathal roared, but Gorvio reached up toward the mist with a hair-raising grab.

“Gotcha.”

Invisible blades of scything wind ripped the mist to shreds. The tattooed vampire poofed out from the cloud and half-flew/half-fell, racing down and out of lethal wind. But they flew too close to the ground.

“Eat.”

A six-fingered hand of red, grasping swamp rose up from the earth and dragged the vampire down.

“Maze!”

The swamp returned to red tile under Mathal’s feet.

“Maze, you fool.”

Though the voice echoed down from some distant part of the chamber, its slight tremor hadn’t quite faded.

Tarvi, Mathal, and Gorvio stood back to back to back, ready for a counterattack, but there was none. The only sound left in the room was their own breathing. They stepped apart, Mathal’s iron scales disintegrating back into her aura.

The only other set of doors in the room stood beneath a towering pair of stained glass windows, red soldered with gold, depicting an equally towering devil with a massive scar across their midsection kneeling at an altar that dripped with blood or possibly wine--it was hard to tell with all the glass only in shades of red. 

“Let’s go.”

They couldn’t afford to keep the devil waiting.


	25. The Tin Soldier

Chapter 25: The Tin Soldier

Their footsteps continued to echo through the winding hall and into the next room, a circular chamber with a domed, 20-foot-high ceiling set with a sea of softly glowing gray crystals. A round counter stood at the middle of the room, its five-foot-tall sides walling off a single black door on the inside of the counter. A cracked, gray crystal ball sat at the center of the countertop. Unlike the crystals above, it did not glow. Behind it stood a seven-foot-tall statue of metal gears and parts, its face as smooth and alien as the lid of a silver platter.

With no time to waste, Mathal vaulted over the countertop. Her feet never touched the ground. A cold metal hand of gears and parts clamped over her throat and dangled her in the air. She dug her claws into its arm, witchlocks slamming its face as she pulled back.

The statue, entirely unphased, kept its suffocating grip. Chelon screamed. It lifted her over the countertop...and simply dropped her on the other side.

“Do you have a contract?” they asked in Infernal, their voice as cold and hollow as an empty tin.

Tarvi and Gorvio ran to Mathal. Though coughing and wheezing, she pushed up to standing on her own. Gorvio picked Kulata off his backpack and held the devil between the three of them.

“What are they talking about?”

“It wasn’t me this time, swear to the Godfiend.”

To bind Liebdaga, any devil, to service required a contract. The late Lord-Mayor Arvanxi had inherited Liebdaga’s when he took office. Now that he was dead, the contract was up for grabs, provided that it could be found.

“Crosael,” muttered Mathal.

Tarvi approached the counter.

“Excuse me, did a guy in a floppy hat and a rag dress come by here?”

“No. Do you have a contract?”

“Everyone must still be looking for it. Or Crosael has it and they’re all looking for Crosael. Damn, I wish I hadn’t flushed him away.”

Like the turd that he was.

“Can we send Liebdaga back to Hell without the contract?” asked Gorvio, eyes on the lonely door.

“That’s where we all end up, eventually. But anyone with the contract could simply call Liebdaga back.”

Not only did they need the contract, they needed to destroy the contract. But with Liebdaga continuing to bring in their army from Hell--

“We don’t have time to wait around for Crosael,” said Mathal quietly.

“You have an idea…,” said Tarvi. “A bad one.”

“Kulata--”

“No! Mathal, no!”

“Woah!” said Gorvio. “Wait, before you do anything that drastic--Kulata, is it possible for someone to wish for the contract?”

“Small item fetching is literally the safest wish you can make. It’s when you start thinking big and nebulous that you run into problems. Simply wishing the pit fiend away, for instance.”

“And even if someone did wish for the contract, would they be able to sign themself onto it?”

“Typically no, but the last holder of the contract is dead, so...yes. As long as they sign before a new mayor is appointed or the contract will be inherited.”

Westcrown was chaos, but mayors were appointed by the royal House of Thrune who ruled from the entirely different city of Egorian. They could appoint a mayor at any time if they hadn’t already.

“What’s the deal with wishes?”

“For you, I’ve got a special three-wish for one-soul limited time offer.”

“I’ll do it,” said Tarvi.

Mathal grabbed her friend by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eye.

“No. You’re too good, Tarvi. You’d never survive Hell.”

“Mathal’s right,” said Kulata. “Your soul is only lemure material. You know those blobby, wax-flesh devils who are about as sentient as you’d imagine a living blob of wax would be? Mathal’s, on the other hand, could easily become a bearded devil. At least they have brains that aren’t semi-solids.”

You only have one soul, said Chelon.

Yeah, but it’s mine. I can do what I want with it.

Mathal grabbed Kulata by a horn, crumpling attached papers.

“Contract. Now.”

Tarvi started forward, but Gorvio, eyes fixed on the ground, took her arm and pulled her back without a word.

“Excellent. Sign or bleed on the bold line and your soul will be mine. You’ll also receive your three wishes.”

“Just spit it out.”

Kulata opened wide. A parchment scroll inked in reddish-brown unfurled off the top of their tongue. 

Mathal snatched the end from the air as it rolled past. She ran her thumb down its side, the straight edge slicing just deep enough for the tiniest red line. She pressed her thumb to the bold line. The contract flared rust red and sapped all the heat from her body. Her shaking hands couldn’t keep hold of Kulata or the paper. 

But devil’s head remained in place, floating and grinning with their tongue still stuck out like a gargoyle’s. The contract whirled around them, shrinking with each erratic orbit until it was no larger than a hand. As it reached the same size and shape as the rest of Kulata’s papers, it punched itself down on a horn, joining the others.

Mathal collapsed onto unsteady hands and knees. Even then, she could barely hold herself up. Tarvi and Gorvio crouched beside her offering words she couldn’t hear and heat she couldn’t feel. The cold came from the inside, something cold and something empty.

Chelon?

Chelon?

Chelon?

“Kulata.”

Tarvi and Gorvio staggered back as though shoved. The floating devil’s head turned, the grin smacked off their face and replaced by a look she instinctively wanted to rip from their skull.

“Kulata. Where is my turtle?”

“Your...familiar.”

“You knew.”

“You’re a witch! The turtle was your familiar! How could you not have--”

Mathal’s scream was an inhuman scream. Her aura burned rust red as her body hexed itself, witchlocks flaring. She flung herself at the devil. She ripped and tore and screamed until all she knew was red, rust red, cold red in her skin, her eyes, her nails, her throat. She tasted its raw metal shoveling out her insides and leaving her with--

She fell to the ground, every cough and wheeze stinging her raw throat. Her skin left sweatprints as she pushed up from the floor.

Kulata stood on their stump before her still with that soft, wretched look on their face, completely unharmed. The contract had protected them from any direct harm.

Mathal spoke. Her rasping voice cracked.

“I wish I had him back.”

That look, that [redacted] look.

“Mathal, you can’t make a wish that violates the terms of the contract.”

She lunged forward. Tarvi’s hand caught her right shoulder. Gorvio’s caught her left. She slumped back down to her knees.

“I wish...I had the contract of the pit fiend Infernal Duke Liebdaga,” she croaked, “right here in my backpack.”

Tarvi placed a golden scroll inked in reddish-brown in her hand. It had worked. They could do it. They could stop the apocalypse. Yet as Mathal pressed her papercut thumb to the bold line for the tiniest red smear, she didn’t feel the slightest sense of victory. She didn’t feel anything.

The contract flared red as the dawn. Tarvi and Gorvio helped her to her feet. They approached the countertop.

“Do you have a contract?”

She slid the red-flaring gold across the countertop. The red light died in the statue’s mechanical hands. They scrolled through every line in mere seconds and handed it back to Mathal. They opened a hidden door in the counterwall, but stepped into its opening when she, Tarvi, and Gorvio all tried to walk through.

“Do you have a contract?”

Mathal turned to face her teammates, standing directly in front of the rigid statue.

“You don’t.”

“Be careful, Mathal,” said Tarvi.

Gorvio said nothing, instead stooping to retrieve Kulata.

“We’ll wait right here for you.”

“Don’t. There’s nothing you can do here. Go back to the crater. There’ve got to be more devils by now.”

Tarvi and Gorvio looked at each other without a word. There was nothing left to say. They left, first walking, then running.

The statue held the final door open for the one who had the contract.


	26. Welcome to Hell

Chapter 26: Welcome to Hell

Mathal stepped straight into a blast of scorching air, blistering her nose and mouth with every breath. A pentagram of fire burning wall to wall from the floor lit the room in gold, orange, and red. Red crystal ribs rose fifty feet up the walls to the center of the domed ceiling where they connected to form a single length of red. Seven massive chains crissed and crossed to form a spherical cage.

A discordant drone like a thousand waves of sleeping and waking cicadas filled the air and shook the room with a constant vibration. As Mathal approached the cage, heat blasted out from the cage and a wreath of fire washed over the chains. The flames slithered up the red line and into the crystal ribs.

Disgusting. Liebdaga may have been an all-powerful devil invading Golarion to bring Hell on earth, but they didn’t deserve to be enslaved as a power source. Mathal pointed at the caging chains.

“Release.”

Apparently, the cage wasn’t bound to the contract. It lurched and rattled to its own, separate beat. Three smaller chains rose up from the tangle like thick, hissing snakes. They shot down at Mathal.

She jumped back, dragging one claw down black stone tile in a flurry of sparks to keep from sliding right into a line of flaming pentagram.

The chains kept rising and diving, their pointed heads axing wedges from the stone. With nowhere left to back up, Mathal tumbled forward through the weave of chains. The three heads immediately yanked from the floor and crossed in their beaming dives.

Mathal screamed. Searing hot metal slashed across her leg, cauterizing as it took the chunk out of her flesh. She landed hard, pentagram pyre singing her witchlocks. The second head clanged off her aura. The third stabbed through her hand.

Mathal roared a cursed prayer for speed and iron. Her aura flared rust red. As her hooked hand grabbed hold of the end of the chain, her body erupted into metal scales. 

She yanked the head from the ground, metal dulling the heat to warmth, and threw herself up into a magically fast spin. Her chain wrapped around her body, involuntarily deflecting the attacking heads. She twisted all the way up to the cage of chains.

Mathal slammed her free arm through its wall in a spark-spraying screech of metal against metal. Her metal-cast witchlocks followed through the gap. They wrapped around the chains and wrenched.

The second and third heads clanged wildly against her armor of aura, scale, and chain. She grunted when the blades found flesh, but never let off the cage, every fiber of muscle popping and straining against the metal.

A head sank into her back. Instead of yanking itself out, Mathal roared as it drove straight through and out below her ribcage. Red bubbled and frothed from her mouth. Locks and limbs swung limp off the cage. 

The chains loosed around her. She crashed back-first against the tile, glossy black shrapnel flying. Everything went black as her eyes rolled to the back of her head. There was nothing left but the endless drone. Then nothing at all.

The stone half-burying Mathal stopped shaking. The drone had stopped. Metal shrieked against metal, shearing her eardrums. Her eyes cracked open in a wince. Her body wouldn’t move.

Two black-clawed hands, skin red as blood, wrapped around either side of the narrow opening between the caging chains. A voice as rumbling and raging as a churning tornado of fire shook the room to the pit of Mathal’s bones in a wordless roar.

Four of the seven chains snapped loosed and writhed in a death rattle, their final wreathing flames shooting into the red line. Black wings feathered by smoke unfurled upside-down from the gap in the chains. They opened to twenty feet, spinning down as a giant, muscled mass armored in a sea of red scales dropped black horns first through the gap. The whole room shuddered under their black-taloned feet.

Liebdaga rose to a full fifteen feet even without their horns. Two pairs of flaming eyes burned into Mathal’s soul--or where her soul would’ve been if she still had one. White smoke wisped and curled out from between a lizard-like maw of fangs as thick as daggers. They opened their mouth and roared her funeral pyre straight into her face.

A cool wind washed over Mathal, the sensation so completely opposite of what she’d expected that she dropped her jaw. Flames flicked her tongue and eyeballs with no more heat or pressure than the touch of fog. The churning fire shrank back into the devil’s skull.

Liebdaga came for her with their claws, ripping and roaring. Mathal watched as though from a distance, as though from a whole other lifetime. Their claws passed through her, cool but not cold. She could track their movement inside her--heart, lungs, throat, brain. The devil went for her vitals, a real pro, except they’d forgotten the workings of their own contract.

Mathal’s mobility returned slowly, toes and fingers first. So she hunkered down in her stone angel and watched the devil, counting the seconds. A raw pink scar ran across their midsection. It was their only wound or blemish. Her gut roiled in a wave of recognition. Only a cursed wound would never have healed.

“Stop! Stop!”

Liebdaga staggered back, scales gleaming under a sheen of sweat that promptly boiled away.

“Why aren’t you dead?” they roared, flushing her with cool, useless flame.

“Already am. On the inside.”

She pushed up to sitting from the Mathal-shaped hole in the ground and pulled out her wand in one hand and the golden contract in the other. Liebdaga shrieked with the voice of metal on metal and returned to her attempted murder. She growled at the newest un-funhouse mirror but otherwise ignored the devil as she charged herself.

Liebdaga finally slumped, thundering to their knees. She couldn’t look at them.

“This is Hell. I’m in Hell,” she muttered, standing.

“You know nothing of Hell, mortal.”

“Not yet. Doesn’t matter. I’m sending you back, and you’re taking your army with you.”

“What--”

“And you’re never allowed to return, you or any of them under your command. You’re all banished.”

“No! No! You can’t send me back!”

“Just a sec.”

Mathal unrolled the golden scroll and traced the fine print with a finger. Fortunately, her Infernal was leagues better than her Azlanti.

“Don’t send me back.”

Her eyes flicked up overtop of the contract.

“Why?”

“I can’t go back in shame. I would be killed in the most humiliating manner known to devilkind and be reborn as a legion of mindless lemures.”

“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before using your last minutes of freedom to bring Hell on earth.”

“Master! Please! Have mercy!”

“No. Infernal Duke Liebdaga, I banish you and all those under you command--”

The devil shrieked fire and smoke, wings flaring to their full span. But they didn’t vanish. 

Mathal hadn’t finished. She held out the gold scroll.

Liebdaga fell silent.

“You’re gonna take it with you. Destroy it when you get to Hell or keep it, just don’t let anyone else get their hands on it--that’s a [redacted] order.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t care what happens to you, but I don’t like slavery. Especially now with my soul in someone else’s pocket.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mathal.”

“Find me when you get to Hell.”

“I’m not gonna shepherd around a swarm of mindless lemures for all eternity.”

“Ouch.”

She snorted. They snorted. The lack of her soul turtle rolling his eyes sent her blinking hard.

“You know the terms,” she croaked. “Take it.”

The pit fiend’s taloned hand closed around the other end of the contract.

“See you on the other side, Mathal.”

\--/--

A thick, gray fog flecked with falling ash blanketed the crater in the wake of Aberian’s Folly. The five flaming tornadoes had long since burned out, banished along with their source. They’d taken their heat with them. The late summer afternoon felt as cool as a wash of magic.

Mathal plodded through the rubble, soot rising from her tracks. She had to climb over the crater’s edge and a barricade of sharpened logs before catching sight of the first humanoid shapes, dark and hazy. They argued.

“This is our city!”

“We were given jurisdiction by Her Imperial Majestrix herself.”

She recognized the second voice, Paralictor Chard. Hellknights and dottari fighting over red tape. She veered away from these humanoid figures.

Past the barricade, the muffled sounds of the broken city filtered through the fog in a matter of minutes. Wheels, hooves, large objects dragging, crashing, shouting. The streets and wreckage funneled everyone closer, enough that she could pick out the soot-muted colors of their clothes, hair, and skin.

“Where’s the nearest tent-temple?” she coughed.

“Your sleeve--cover your nose and mouth.”

“Thanks.”

The dark, hazy humanoid gave her the directions. It wasn’t far. It was more black than red. She pushed the tent flaps aside and sat on the nearest cot. It was wet, but she couldn’t smell anything over the smoke.

A cleric rushed down the narrow aisle between cots to lay a hand on her shoulder. They jerked it back as though burned.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I need a nap. And I’m looking for Vesta.”

“She’s on duty. She’ll be back in--”

“Wake me up when she’s here.”

Sheer exhaustion knocked her out seconds after she’d laid her head down on the wet pillow. It seemed like she was being shaken awake only seconds later.

“Mathal!”

Vesta knelt at her cotside. Tarvi, Gorvio, and that [redacted] devil’s head squatted behind her, backlit by a golden halo. The relic hung from the center of the tent and filled the cold night with its shadow-annoying light.

“You finally found a use for that stupid stick.”

The only three she cared to see cracked the weakest of smiles. The light was the good news, the only good news.

“Just tell me.”

“Nonon, Delour, and Calseinica made it out before the explosion.”

“They even roped in Chammady and Eccardian--do you remember meeting them backstage?”

“Acting saved lives.”

“That’s...good news.”

The three in and exhaled together. Tarvi and Gorvio each patted one of Vesta’s shoulders. She gave Mathal’s hand a squeeze.

“With all the Hellknights and dottari concentrated here, there was widespread looting of the wealthier districts.”

That was a weird thing to say. The silence stretched on until Mathal realized it wasn’t. Her gut dropped through the floor. The Nightshade Theater had been looted.

She jerked straight up screaming bloody murder.

“MY MONEY!”

“Mathal, I’m so sorry.”

It was the last straw. Her own throat choked off her scream. Her shoulders shook in violent, silent sobbing. The three offered words and contact, all meaningless.

Without that money, she was back to being homeless. There went her way out of Westcrown. There went her life without crime. There went her future.

Mathal hit the cot curled in a ball. She rolled over onto her knees and pulled the pillow over her head.

“Go.”

They left her alone.


	27. I See Your Red Door

Chapter 27: I See Your Red Door

Mathal woke at dawn. When she didn’t see Chelon, she remembered, and rolled back to face the red wall of the tent. She couldn’t fall back to sleep, so she stared until the other side of the cot dipped under someone’s butt. Tarvi put a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey.”

Mathal sat up, curled over her knees, but didn’t say anything. Tarvi passed her a breakfast roll, a shell-shaped breakfast roll.

“Gorvio says we can stay with him for awhile.”

“How long is awhile?”

“Don’t. Please don’t.”

Gorvio planned to take them as soon as Mathal finished her breakfast to free up cots for those pulled from the wreckage today. Mathal tried to find Vesta to say goodbye, but it was well into mid-morning. The cleric had long since gone into the field.

“I’m sure you’ll see her again,” said Tarvi.

Hopefully before they were both roasting in Hell.

Mathal and Tarvi, Kulata hidden in her pack, followed Gorvio through the pale gray haze to edge of the last and shrinking middle class district. Just across the street slept the ruins and bank-seized shells of Rego Cader, the Dead Sector.

He brought them down an alley that straddled the border between the bustling and foreclosed. A dilapidated cart slumped against the wall beside a brightly painted red door to a customs house refurbished as a boarding house. The wooden sign over the door read: ‘The Way Station.’

The door opened before Gorvio had removed his keys from his pocket. Two Garundi immigrants leaned against either side of the hall. The leftmost had dark brown skin and wore a vibrant green sash over their broad shoulders and waist. The rightmost stood at six-foot-three with skin so dark it appeared a bluish black. They wore a pair of fine, wire-frame spectacles.

“Morning, Gorvio,” said Larko with the softly guttural Osiriani accent.

“She’s been waiting for you,” said the bespectacled Sclavo. “Who are your friends?”

“Allies.” 

Gorvio introduced them to Larko and Sclavo, both he/him, the couple who owned The Way Station. Lawyers with little time to spare when the city cogs were running, they left the boarding house management to Fiosa.

“Except that city isn’t running,” said Sclavo as he tripped up the narrow staircase past framed portraits of poorly painted dogs.

“Could be looking at the end of the line,” said Larko, plodding up after his partner.

“No, we saved Westcrown,” said Tarvi.

Larko and Sclavo stopped outside the door at the end of the hall, faces grim. Larko put his hand on the knob, but Sclavo shook his head. He wiped his glasses on the hem of his suit jacket and explained in a hushed tone.

The royal House of Thrune had given the Council nobles two weeks to appoint a new lord-mayor of Westcrown. If they failed to reach a unanimous decision within that time, Westcrown would fall victim to their latest experiment, a rule of indefinite martial law by Paralictor Chard’s commander and master of the Hellknights’s Citadel Rivad, Lictor Richemar Alamansor. He was known at the Citadel for his ‘clarity pyres,’ the burning of heretical books and those who owned them.

“All of his enemies have been found in possession of contraband,” said Sclavo.

“And their allies. And their allies,” said Larko.

“To put it shortly, the fires of Rivad have never gone out.”

Everyone jumped at the creak of the door. A stooped halfling with a wrinkled, dark brown face and a soft halo of gray hair stood barefoot in the doorway. Larko and Sclavo immediately touched the curl of their fists to their forehead. Even Gorvio nodded deeply.

“Oh, good, I got the day right.”

Fiosa shuffled into the room, beckoning the others in with a wave. The only furniture in the room was a low, wooden table surrounded by seven rough, squat stools. The walls, however, had been papered floor to ceiling in layers of maps, building schematics, and pages of numbers. 

Fiosa sat at the head of the table and pulled a tray holding a chipped pitcher and six clay cups up from under the table. She poured out a citrusy cider and slid the cups across the table, sloshing be damned. Everyone rushed to their stools to catch the flying cups. The stool between Tarvi and Mathal remained empty. It was the only seat that hadn’t received a cup.

“Where’s the little secretary?”

“You mean that soul-stealing piece of--”

“That’s the one.”

Despite the fury the radiated from Mathal strongly enough to raise the room temperature by three degrees, Tarvi set Kulata on the stool. At least the devil was so short that she couldn’t see anything beyond their paper-cluttered horns.

“No, put them on the table. They won’t be able to take notes down there.”

“I’m not actually a secretary.”

“Nevermind, scratch that.”

“Did Gorvio tell you about us?” asked Tarvi.

“No. And I’m guessing you don’t need an introduction, either, Larazod.”

That was some oracular spectacular magic Fiosa had. No wonder she was still in charge.

“What are the terms?” asked Mathal.

“Room, board, and a minimum wage stipend in exchange for complete confidentiality and your unquestioning aid in freeing slaves.”

“Done,” said Tarvi.

Everyone looked at Mathal after the next two minutes passed in silence.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Mathal!”

“It’s the exact same deal we had with the Orphanage.”

“But not evil, so it’s great.”

“I’m not sold on ‘unquestioning aid.’”

“Do you really think we’re going to get another--you know what? Whatever. I’m not even speaking to you right now.”

“How long do you need?” asked Gorvio.

“I don’t know.”

“Fiosa,” said Kulata, “how long can Mathal ride the pity train?”

Mathal snapped to her feet, stool tumbling out behind her. She dumped her cider onto the devil’s head and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Both doors. She continued storming out into the alley.

“Mathal! Mathal!”

Gorvio leaned out a second floor window.

“What.”

He chucked a scroll at her, but she made no effort to snatch it. The paper thwacked her in the face. It fell into her waiting hands. The scroll contained a crude but accurate map of the district with a single red dot in an alley.

“Come back before dusk.”

\--/--

After discovering that there were still enough dottari in the area to trouble her for napping on a park bench, Mathal returned to The Way Station several hours early. Larko got the door. Tarvi and Gorvio were both upstairs with Fiosa, being briefed. The words turned her guts to lead. She had no idea where Tarvi got her trust to go forward with it all, and Chelon wasn’t around to give her a clue.

“You ok?”

“I’m fine.”

“Come sit in the kitchen with us.”

Before she could say anything, her stomach growled monstrously. She followed Larko without another word.

The sunlit kitchen hit her stomach hard with the scents of boiling meat, steaming rice, and raw vegetables. Sclavo, in a royal blue apron, manned the main corner with three pots on the oven, and a multi-colored array of vegetables around a chopping block. Larko pulled out a stool for Mathal at the kitchen bartop, beside Kulata, and disappeared into the pantry.

“I had a bath. Can you tell?”

She ignored the devil and slumped forward with her chin in her hands and her elbows on the bartop where she couldn’t see them. Larko returned with a blunt knife and a covered clay dish. Sclavo set down his razor-sharp chopping knife to spread his arms in question.

“Lark, I’m right here cooking dinner.”

“They’re young. They could eat a house. Right?”

Mathal’s stomach growled in answer.

“So long as it’s only them eating.”

“Keep jumping those conclusions--”

Sclavo playfully whacked Larko’s shoulder with a wooden stirring spoon. Larko staggered to the bar like a man mortally wounded and set the dish between Mathal and Kulata. He handed her the knife, clasping his hand around hers on the handle.

“You. Share.”

He staggered past his partner on his way back to the pantry. Sclavo rolled his eyes but grinned despite himself. 

Something twinged in Mathal’s chest. She brushed it off, blinking her eyes clear, and raised the lid. Her eyes and mouth truly watered at the warm scents of sweet spices from the shiny, sticky pone bread. She swore in Aklo, but the sound of her own stomach drowned it out. Mathal hacked off a thick square and grabbed it with her bare hand.

“Aren’t you supposed to share?”

She threw Kulata a sticky bird and chewed the sweet potato lump ballooning her cheek. Sclavo said nothing but slowed their chopping to a loud, deliberate knife-fall.

“I’m not holding you over a compost bin.”

“I--that is completely unnecessary.”

She cut off a tiny wedge, slapped it on the bartop, and scooted it over to Kulata on the blade of the knife. Sclavo winced at the scraping.

“Sorry, Sclavo.”

Kulata hopped within tongue’s reach of the wedge and opened their mouth. Their tongue flailed, occasionally hooking off sticky bits, but mostly just licking in vain. Mathal flicked the knife, flinging the pone down the devil’s throat. Kulata coughed and hacked until the wedge came up to a chewable position.

Mathal covered the dish and set the knife, covered in crumbs and undead spittle, into the sink.

\--/--

She didn’t see Tarvi until dinner, an awkward, silent affair--if only for the two of them. Tarvi ignored her by concentrating entirely on eating, which removed her from the conversation about the fate of Westcrown. Mathal simply responded with grunts any time that someone questioned her while she tried to think of something to say to the good friend slipping away from her in front of her very eyes.

Her mind was as blank and clean as her plate by dinner’s end. One by one, the eaters left the table. Tarvi left first, taking Kulata with her. Larko was next. Sclavo. Gorvio. Only Fiosa remained, sipping her tea with her eyes on Mathal and her finished plate. Mathal dropped her eyes to the blank white clay, glistening with spit. Her body cooled and butt numbed. 

The teacup clinked onto the table.

“I’ll show you your room.”

Fiosa grabbed a candle and brought her back to the second floor to the second door on the right. The room was narrow, but comfortably fit a bed, a desk, and a chair. Mathal could almost see the night sky over the black mass of buildings out the window. The door’s hinges squeaked behind Fiosa.

“I don’t know when I’ll have the time to tell you this, so I’ll say it now: thank you for what you did.”

“Don’t. I regret it. If I had to do it again, I’d let Westcrown burn.”

“You only have one soul.”

Something twinged in Mathal’s chest. Something shattered.

“Get out.”

The hinges stayed silent.

“Get out!”

The candleflame flickered, but Fiosa didn’t move.

“Get out!”

“Get out!”

“Get out!”

“GET OUT!”

Mathal’s aura surged rust red, witchlocks flaring and lashing up behind her. The candle whooshed out. Fiosa did not.

“This is not your house.”

Mathal’s hair fell limp, shrinking back over her shoulders as Kulata’s ugly color faded from her aura.

“You have until a new lord-mayor is appointed or Westcrown falls to the Lictor to make your choice.”

Fiosa shuffled out. The door squeaked shut behind her.


	28. Take Me Home, Country Road

Chapter 28: Take Me Home, Country Road

Mathal laid awake until gray light filtered in through the blinds. She watched the bar-like shadows stretch and fade across the floor until she drifted off. She woke seconds later from a pounding knock on the door...at noon.

“Come eat,” shouted Gorvio.

She was hungry, starving by the sound of her stomach, but the mere thought of the effort it would take for her to get out of bed, walk to the door, and be around a bunch of witnesses while pretending last night never happened turned her bones to lead. She rolled onto her back and laid her pillow over the upper half of her face as a large, unwieldy sleeping mask.

“Pass.”

Something plinked against her window. It might’ve been rain. Plink. But the sound was a little too sharp. Plink. It was small and light. Plink, plink, plink.

“Mathal, about the day we stopped the apocalypse…”

She pulled the impromptu mask off her face. White powder streaked her window. Three chalk missiles plinked against the glass. She tumbled out of bed in a barefoot mess of wrinkles and tangles and stalked to the window. There was nothing outside.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

She drew the blinds with a yank and forced up the squeaky window, hissing at the blast of heat and light. A chalk nib hurtled up from the alley. She crushed it to powder in her fist.

“Get the [redacted] out of here!”

“I get you’re angry, and you have every right to be angry, but if you could just hear me--”

Something large, solid, and invisible whooshed past her head. It landed lightly, on two feet. She faced the invisible thing in a ready stance. It wrote out words in chalk and Common on the floorboards: ‘We need to talk.’

“Moris?”

“You’re still angry about--look, with Tarvi up in those vampires’s faces, there was really nothing I--”

‘No. I’m here to talk, peaceably.’

“Fine.”

The cloaking invisibility opened up around a tall man in a ragged dress and a floppy hat. Mathal snarled quietly and threw herself at Crosael nails first. He caught her nails in his.

“You said talking would be fine,” he whisper-shouted.

“That was before I knew it was you,” she whispered back, witchlocks slamming at his face.

He deflected her hair off his forearm. She shifted her stance just enough that they thwacked the bed instead of the floor. Down and low, she snapped a kick at his knee.

Crosael shifted back toward the door, but she twisted in the air to roundhouse his temple. He had to physically block the kick, leaving his abdomen open. Her witchlocks slammed into his gut.

He hushed his grunt. One hand locked around her ankle and the other around the ends of her hair. He flung her onto the bed, pulling in opposite directions. Her nails stabbed through the mattress but let her land without a sound.

“We talk or I’ll break it.”

With a whispered roar of frustration, she grabbed her pillow and threw it at his face. It thwacked ineffectually, damaging only his look by knocking off the floppy hat.

“Are you done?”

“Yeah.”

He let go with a little shove so both feet landed on the bed. She sat at the head of the bed against the wall, knees curled to her chest. He sat gingerly at the other end, hunching with his feet on the floor and elbows on his knees.

“I got a dream from Mom last night. She tried contacting our older sibling, Silana--”

“Dead.”

Or undead, from the sound of it.

“Figures. And you--”

“De-souled.”

“Ah, that makes sense. Good luck with that.”

“How’d you find me me?”

“Your smell. Do you still have your magic?”

“You mean all that magic you stole?”

“Borrowed.”

“I haven’t tried casting. I have an aura that’s not mine.”

“But you do have one. That’ll be enough for her.”

“She’s...getting the coven back together.”

“She’s getting the coven back together.”

Temporarily. The Maggot-Tree, the tree she’d grown on a diet of her own flesh and blood over a nexus of ley lines to weave them to her designs, was under attack. It was her most valuable and dependable source of power given her fluctuating coven status. Without the Maggot-Tree, she was nothing but a hag so reclusive that she’d had to take up swamp-farming to make up for all the lost manflesh.

“I don’t fancy another visit from Mom in my dreams--”

“More like nightmares.”

“Indeed, so if you could get your answer to me ASAP, it would be very appreciated.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Really?”

Mathal shrugged. She had to get out of Westcrown. This wasn’t ideal, but a holiday in the swampy countryside might be just what she needed to clear her head. Whether or not she’d return to the city or simply head out into the unknown from there had yet to be decided, but she leaned toward the unknown.

“Pack up and say your goodbyes, then. Is there anywhere here large enough to hold a teleportation circle?”

“The kitchen.”

“Excellent.”

Crosael faded back into invisibility. Mathal punched where she’d last seen his shoulder.

“Stop that. You want to get exorcised out of here?”

“...no.”

Gorvio only stopped talking when she opened the door. His eyes darted from her to Crosael and back. Crosael offered a face-splitting grin.

“Morning.”

“What.”

“It’s a family matter.”

Gorvio escorted them down to the dining room where everyone else had gathered for lunch. Everyone but Tarvi froze. She jumped to her feet, chair clattering behind her. She brandished her frost dagger in one hand and her table knife in the other. She gave them both a hostile spin.

“It’s fine, Tarvi. He’s not here to fight. He’s here to take me home.”

“Oh, I’ve seen you. Majordomo, isn’t it? You’re not welcome here,” said Fiosa. “Larko, Sclavo, would you mind taking that [redacted-dacter] to the kitchen so he can draw his little circle and begone?”

That [redacted-dacter] left with Larko and Sclavo without a word. Only then did Tarvi relax her knife and dagger.

“Mathal? Can we talk?”

Fiosa stood up on her chair.

“Don’t mind me. Gorvio, let’s join the others.”

He carried her out on his back, leaving the mid-meal dining room to Tarvi and Mathal. Kulata was there too, slowly, ponderously chewing something on top of the table, but the devil didn’t count as an occupant. Tarvi hooked her arm around Mathal’s and brought her to the corner window.

“Mathal, I know you need time, and space, plenty of space, but this? Last time we saw Crosael, he was one, trying to earn his Mammon Coin, and two, trying to kill us. Trying to kill you in particular. This is a trap.”

“He could’ve killed me this morning.”

“So he didn’t kill you immediately. He could already be initiated, and his first mission is to take you in for a trial and execution.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

Tarvi threw up her hands.

“I get it. This isn’t about trust at all. You’re running away.”

“I’m going on holiday.”

“On holiday. With someone you hate. Back to some place that you left for the Orphanage?”

Mathal looked out the window into the bustling street. It was a far cry from the abandoned buildings and wreckage out her own window on the other side of the house. The wind kicked up and gusted through the window, blowing the rough, flowered curtains into her and Tarvi’s faces. Tarvi flung the curtain off her face.

“This is a mistake.”

She stormed out of the dining room and up the stairs.

“I’m inclined to agree but don’t let that stop you,” said Kulata.

Mathal wordlessly gave them another bird and left for the kitchen.

Everyone sat on the barstools on the other side of the kitchen’s main corner. Sclavo shook his head, arms crossed over his chest. Larko patted his shoulder but shook his head as well. Gorvio glared overtop of a cooling cup of tea. Fiosa sipped from hers, but her eyes never left Crosael.

Crosael crouched and walked a slow circle step by step. The chalk in his hand never left the floor as it flourished out the lines of the teleportation interconnected with the curls of unspeakable glyphs. He didn’t look up as Mathal entered, but his nose twitched and wrinkled.

“Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah. Fiosa, Larko, Sclavo--thanks for the hospitality.”

“Gorvio, too,” said Fiosa.

“Gorvio, too.”

“You don’t have to go alone,” said Gorvio.

“Trust me, you and Tarvi have way more important things to do here.”

“That’s true,” said Fiosa.

Crosael stood up, dusting his palms on the sides of his raggedy dress. An olive green glow flowered out from the center of the circle through every line and curl of chalk. The light rose as soft as smoke up from the floor to the kitchen ceiling. Where it touched, it left a phantom copy of the circle below.

“Crosael, will we have to clean this up? Off the ceiling?” asked Sclavo.

“Better not,” said Larko.

“It’ll vanish when we do. Mathal?”

Crosael stepped into the circle and held out his hand.

“Just a sec.”

She ran back into the dining room.

“You’re coming with me.”

“I may just be a head, but I’m also a person and not some object you can tote around like your personal, talking tote bag.”

“You’re also the one who stole my turtle in exchange for your stupid wishes.”

If things got weird, and things involving her mother usually did, the option to wish herself out of there was too tempting not to take. 

Mathal returned to the kitchen with a grumpy devil’s head. She stopped beside Gorvio and gave him a sharp nod. He nodded back, hesitantly. She stepped into the circle and took Crosael’s hand. Her brother’s aura flared until all she could see was his swampy olive green.


	29. O Brother, Where Are We?

Chapter 29: O Brother, Where Are We?

Rain dropped onto Mathal as gently as a stream of tears, its fall slowed by the dense tangle of trees. She raised her arms and turned her face up to the water, the first shower she’d had since the night before Delvehaven. The oaks, firs, and pines of the Etherwood soared to unnatural heights and fought the redwoods for light some three hundred or more feet off the ground, leaving the forest floor as dark as night.

“Could you put me down?” Kulata coughed and sputtered.

Crosael held open his sackcloth tote bag. The rain slicked off the waxed sides and handles.

“It’s best we hide your devil from the Ethercourt. Unless you wanted them kidnapped and ransomed, of course.”

Mathal would sooner listen to an idea from Crosael than fall for that oldest racket in the fey’s playbook. Into the tote they went.

“Which way to Mother’s?”

“This way,” he said, trampling through the underbrush under a bridge of branches hung with tumorlike growths. “I think.”

The ley-line fed trees of Etherwood were known to play tricks on the non-fey, but after the fifth turn back, Mathal could only blame Crosael’s [redacted] sense of direction for getting them stupid lost. Without her spell for the shortest cut through the forest, however, she was left plodding in the rain after him to the sound of her grumbling stomach. More regrets.

“Why didn’t you teleport closer?”

“You can’t complain about the magical transport when you’re out of spells yourself.”

“I’m not complaining, just asking.”

“Well it sounded like a complaint, so I won’t hear it, and I won’t respond to it.”

“I should’ve let them help me kill you.”

“That escalated quickly.”

Two ten-foot, six-hundred-pound, bulbous-headed ogres crashed out from between the trees. They came at the siblings with a club-waving roar.

“Sorry, hangry.”

Mathal hexed the ground. The top-heavy ogres tripped and fell face-first into quagmire. Crosael jumped onto the nearest neck. It snapped under his heel.

“How do you feel about ogre?”

Six shirtless, gray-bearded fey with pointed caps dripping red leaped from the underbrush on either side. The three on Mathal’s side swung their scythes in crossing sweeps. The heavy blades ripped red gashes through her leg, chest, and cheek.

She grunted and staggered, her back bumping into Crosael’s.

“Too sentient.”

The six redcaps and remaining ogre surrounded them on all sides. The redcaps grinned shark-like and let out a hissing cackle. The ogre roared. They charged in first.

Crosael’s bell clanged and pierced the wood’s thick silence. The ogre and fey clapped their hands over their ears, the ogre bellowing in pain.

Instead of ringing from her skull into her brain, this time the bell’s clang beat with her own pulse. She clawed at the nearest redcap. The bell sharpened her blows. Her nails stabbed straight through the fey’s toughened hide. Her witchlocks slammed its throat with force of her magic and that of her sibling’s.

The ogre roared and gripped their giant club in two hands. They swung wild. Mathal and the second redcap dropped to the ground to keep her ribs and their head from getting bashed in. The third thocked the end of their scythe into her back.

Mathal screamed. Her witchlocks surged up at the blade. They knocked it out toward the quagmire. The third redcap ran to get it, but Mathal ripped one claw through the back of their knee. The redcap fell with a cry that turned to a gurgle as she gouged its throat.

The giant club smashed down. She rolled out of the way and up to her feet. The second scythe shanked a gash down her upper arm. Mathal cried out in pain but shifted close on the inside of the blade. Her witchlocks wrapped around the handle.

The redcap chittered angrily and yanked. She crouched and drove her claws through their open sides.

The ogre’s club whirred down through the clanging air. Mathal leaped back as she threw the redcap forward. The heavy wood bashed in the fey’s skull.

The ogre looked up in confusion. Bone snapped over the tolling bell. The club dropped from their hands. The ogre dropped face-first. Crosael landed on top of them, one foot on their neck.

The ringing stopped all at once. Mathal stood slowly. Crosael walked atop the ogre and from body to body across the quagmire. She ended her hex.

Crosael hopped off and picked up the redcap he’d trampled by the back of their bloodied scruff.

“Which way to the swamp?”

The redcap answered in Aklo as well, their native tongue.

“Southeast you [redacted] tourist,” they spat, pointing in the direction.

Blood slid down the side of Crosael’s face. He snapped their neck. Somehow, the death felt unnecessary, if only to Mathal. He dropped the body and walked back to her.

“Do you need some healing?”

“Yeah. Left my wand.”

He laid a hand on her not-wounded shoulder.

“By the way, if I had all your misgivings about what is and isn’t edible, I’d steer clear of any meat at Mom’s.”

His aura flared olive green, and a cool wash of hair-raising magic stitched her skin shut.

Sure enough, by walking in the southeasterly direction of the redcap, they crossed paths with the old, narrow creek with its tell-tale bottom of red clay. They followed it down to Hagswamp, a forest quagmire thick with red clay deposits and redder algae. Mathal pulled Kulata out of Crosael’s tote so they could make some terrible comment and cut through her unbidden, unwanted pang of nostalgia.

“Oh, it’s just like Hell. But with water.”

“Thanks.”

She put them back in.  
The roots of the trees had taken the shape of the unspeakable glyphs that marked the protective clearing for Mother’s rice paddies. It was the only place in the Etherwood where one could see the sky. Darkness had fallen and all the stars were coming out to play. Plumes of smoke rose from the northwest, the direction of the Maggot Tree. 

A chill wind whistled over the paddies and cut Mathal to the bone. It came from the west. She and Crosael locked eyes. Without a word, they raced over swamp and stone gutter to the red, beaver-like dam rising in the distance.

Mathal ran and ran until her own breath cut as deep as the wind. Crosael was fast, but the swamp itself carried her feet. She collapsed first at the foot of the dam’s wooden ladder. Crosael dropped half a second behind her.

Mother’s hill of wood and clay stood twenty feet tall over a fifty-foot-diameter on stilts in the quagmire. A thick, deliberate tangle of roots and fungus held the ladder in place. The swamp below stank of rotting compost and spoilt milk of beetle.

“Does this bag close any tighter?” asked Kulata. “These swamp fumes are giving me a--”

Six black clouds hovered out from the bottom of the hill and drowned out the devil with their tooth-rattling buzz. Mathal and Crosael clambered to their feet.

“Mom, it’s us!” Crosael shouted through cupped hands.

The clouds of biting black flies drifted forward.

“Mathal! And Crosael!” Mathal shouted over the endless, saw-like buzz.

The flies rose up into a black, shivering wave. The swarm crashed down.

“Mother!”

Her eyes, ears, throat, and nose didn’t fill with a crawling, suffocating mass of meat-melting flies. All those skittering legs and membranous wings surged past, itching and scratching without breaking the skin.

The six clouds whirled and gathered into a large, humanoid mass behind the siblings. As the final, straggling fly joined the mass, the swarm shrank down by sinking through a liquid sheet of gray skin. They sinking flies unveiled a mop of coarse, bark-like hair and black, sagging eyes. The naked hag stood back straight, arms akimbo, lines of flies occasionally rippling under the surface of her skin. She threw back her head with a wild, cackling laugh.

“You two! Ha! Your faces!”

Mathal and Crosael straightened up. Mathal’s face was as set as stone. Crosael laughed weakly back.

“You got us.”

“You bet,” grinned the Mother of Flies, walking up and hooking her arms under theirs. “Don’t be a fun-sucker, Mathal. You know Mommy only eats the failures. Ha!”

They stopped three steps later at the ladder. Mother unhooked her arms and shoved both their backs toward the ladder. Mathal shouldered past Crosael and climbed as far as she could away from them.

“Where’s Silana?”

“Dead,” said Crosael.

“Figures. Mathal, why couldn’t I dreamvisit you?”

“I lost my soul.”

Wild, cackling laughter erupted behind Crosael. He chimed in with a chuckle.

“Ha! No, really.”

“It’s true,” said Kulata through the muffling wall of the tote.

Mathal would’ve face-palmed. Instead she pulled herself off the ladder, shaking with growing force, and onto the dam’s deck. Below, Mother reached into the totebag and fished the devil out by the horn.

“WHAT? YOU SOLD YOUR SOUL FOR A HANDFUL OF PARTY TRICKS?”

“I sold my soul to stop an apocalypse.”

“Beetle nuts on a cracker, who told you that? Was it you, redhead?”

She gave Kulata a paper-rattling shake.

“N-n-no-o-o.”

“Mom, stop.”

To Mathal’s surprise and her own, Mother did. Then she threw back her head, cackling, and Kulata’s, up at Mathal.

“When you get to Hell, be sure to say hi to your dad for me.”

Crosael pulled her up onto the deck, both at it again like a couple of hyenas. Mother went for the door, stopped, and walked slow toward Mathal, head tilted to one side.

“You still have your magic, right?”

Her voice turned low and husky, the same voice she used in her hunting form. A line of flies stretched the skin of her neck so thin that it wrapped around their bulbous heads and skittering legs.

Mathal stepped back even though it took her heels over the edge of the deck.

“Right,” said she and Kulata.

Mother straightened up in the blink of an eye, her grin shrinking back to a relatively normal stretch over her pointed teeth.

“I’m so glad to see you’re still my funny little girl. Not like Silana, damn them. You see them in Hell, you beat them into lemure pudding, got it?”

“Got it.”

Mathal’s treacherous stomach growled in spite of herself. Mother and Crosael went full hyena. The image of Mother wished permanently into six swarms of buzz-sawing flies flashed through her mind.

With a quick jangle of keys, Mother kicked open the door.

“Crosael, let’s get this girl some lemure pudding!”

A black cauldron as large as a wooden bathing tub boiled over a chalk-ringed fire at the center of the floor. Thick, spiced and savory smoke piped up through the single, circular opening through the roof of the wooden hill. 

Mother waded through the carpet of dirt and ankle-high fungi to a fallen cupboard leaned against the wall. She threw two bowls at the siblings and drew out a ladle and bowl for herself. She ladled out rice stewed in swamp curry, thick with veg, bugs and cubed meat.

Mathal, Crosael, and Mother sat cross-legged in the carpet a few feet from the black cauldron. Mathal set Kulata on her lap and pushed the meat cubes to the edge of her bowl where the devil could snap them up. Mother lowered her bowl.

“Why aren’t you drinking?”

“I’m...on a diet.”

Mother snorted.

“Mathal, sweetie, we’re shapeshifters. Just,” she snapped her fingers and shifted into a buzzing mass of six swarms compressed into cross-legged, humanoid form.

“I can’t.”

Mother popped back to her gray, naked self.

“WHAT?”

“I didn’t prep the spell. And my spells only cast a third of the time.”

Mother tossed her bowl into the fungi. Mathal flinched as she clapped her hands on Mathal’s shoulders. Her swamp curry sloshed onto her and Kulata.

Mother sat back on her heels. Her head tipped up to the ceiling. A slow, squawking laugh hacked out.

“You just gotta focus.”

“I cut my focus out of my chest.”

Tarvi did, but Mother didn’t need to know about Tarvi.

“You’ve got another. Chelon.”

“Chelon’s gone,” she growled, something twinging in her chest.

Mother poked the skin over that same spot with a black-nailed finger.

“Sure is. Guess that’s the one decent party trick you got out of your deal.”

“Sure,” she croaked.

Mathal raised her bowl and took a long, tasteless drink.


	30. Bedtime Stories

Chapter 30: Bedtime Stories

Mother had Crosael move the black cauldron after dinner, but the fire continued to burn within the chalk circle. Mathal leaned back with her elbows in the fungi carpet. Crosael laid down on his stomach, head in his hands. Mother sat on her knees and cracked her knuckles.

“Here’s the sitch.”

Yesterday morning, none other than Vassindio Drovenge had sent his agents (Orphans, not that Mother would’ve known), to ally with the Ethercourt fey and bring down the Maggot Tree. Mother’s familiar, Fmughwa the Deathgorger, was holding down the fort and had forced the attackers to lay siege, but she couldn’t hold out forever.

“Why’s Drovenge after the Tree?”

“He wants to discredit me.”

“What,” said Mathal and Crosael.

“Nobody believes you when you’re powerless.”

“Believe what?” asked Mathal.

“That Drovenge isn’t a real noble.”

“That’s impossible,” said Crosael. “His lineage goes back for generations.”

Mother snorted.

“That’s the kind of quality you get when your friendly neighborhood deal broker,” she pointed at herself, “sets you up with the archdevil Mammon. And, he only had to pay me with his firstborn,” she looked straight at the devil, “turtle-muncher.”

“At least I send my souls to Hell unviolated.”

Mother’s knuckles whipped across Kulata’s face. The devil flew into the fire. They rolled and hopped back onto their stump to the edge of the circle. The chalk flared up with a gray as deep as Mother’s skin. Kulata bounced back with a deep but silent glower.

“Why wouldn’t Drovenge just have you killed?” asked Crosael.

“I took his firstborn. He needs me to suffer a comparable loss first--keep up, Cros.”

Everything clicked. Drovenge was running for the next lord-mayor of Westcrown. If the other surviving nobles found out his entire house had been fabricated by Mammon and powered by the Mammon-worshipping Orphanage, they’d never vote for him. They’d fear that he’d use them to bend the Council wholly to his will or simply demolish it. And why wouldn’t he?

“Did you plan on giving away his secret?”

“For the right price, why not? But I’ve never had any askers. The fey are killing tourism here. Not that I mind.” 

Mother got up to her feet and stretched out from finger to toe.

“First thing tomorrow, you and Crosael go to the Maggot Tree and break the siege.”

“We’re not going in as a coven?”

Mother doubled over cackling. Crosael joined in with a weak, questioning chuckle.

“Mathal! I missed my little comedian. You know I hate that touchy-feely crap.”

The coven ritual did require holding hands and singing a wordless song in the dark.

“You wouldn’t have to do anything,” said Crosael. “Just join us in a coven, and Mathal and I can do the rest.”

At three times as fast and powerful with their bonded magic.

“Please, I’m not mixing magic with Devil Aura over here. But if you really want some power, Mathal does still have a wish or two left, doesn’t she?”

Mathal stood up and reached into the fire. She winced at the hellish bite of the flames but grabbed the devil by the horn and yanked them out.

“See you tomorrow. I’m sleeping outside.”

She stormed out, slamming the dam door behind her.

It’d been over fourteen years, but her feet found the way to her favorite sleeping nook as though it was yesterday that Mother had left her, a fourteen-year-old changeling, at the edge of Etherwood with nothing but a turtle on her shoulder and the charge to ‘make it or break it, my funny little girl.’ She hunkered down against the rise at the treeline in the soft carpet of decaying leaves. 

The air here had none of the sweat, piss, and staleness of the city. It smelled of green and earth. The sky above glowed softly with a sea of winking stars. A cool wind swept over the rice paddies below, rippling the water and the blades of grass. Mathal punched the forest floor. It was so [redacted] beautiful.

“If it makes you feel any better, I can’t stand this place either,” said Kulata, spitting out browned leaves.

“Worse than Hell?”

“Well, I don’t mind Hell. Or I didn’t until I cut that deal with Liebdaga.”

Mathal set the devil in her lap.

“Spill it.”

“If you insist...”

Liebdaga had been a general and commander of the conquering armies of Hell. Kulata had been their advisor. They’d been sent to make war against the angels of Nirvana. The invasion had all gone according to plan until the angels sent out a six-winged solar, their equivalent of an archdevil. 

Liebdaga and the solar proved equal in power, or so the two warring armies thought. During their next-to-last battle, the solar struck down Liebdaga with a mortal wound.

“Of course, I had to make an offer. The Duke would’ve died and returned as who knew what. Then where would the war have ended?”

“What was the deal?”

“Their life in exchange for control of the devil’s armies. Behind-the-scenes, of course.”

“Oh my god.”

“There was no god in this, I assure you.”

Kulata burned through every soul they’d obtained up to that day to bring Liebdaga back to full strength although they never managed to heal the scar. As devils bound by their words, Liebdaga had no choice but to honor their end of the deal. 

From behind-the-scenes Kulata held the power of Hell’s own armies in their hands. But, they lacked all experience. The armies suffered defeat after humiliating defeat, and all the blame fell on Liebdaga’s shoulders.

“Eventually, they couldn’t take it anymore and contracted a third party to deal with me.”

“Why were you their war advisor if you were terrible at war?”

“Pure nepotism. Liebdaga and I started out friends...why’d you stop rubbing?”

Crosael walked out from between the trees. He sat down beside her. He must’ve tracked her by scent.

“What does she want now?”

“Let me see your hand.”

She laid her burned hand gingerly over his. Coolness washed through her, and the red, blistered skin faded back to normalcy. They parted hands immediately after, Crosael wrapping his arms around his knees. They stared out into the clearing.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior.”

That was unexpected.

“I didn’t get any of the shapeshifting except for,” he waved a hand over his youthful self, “but something about this place turns me back into a stupid fourteen-year-old.”

It wasn’t the Etherwood. It was Mother.

“I feel it, too.”

“...I’d always wondered what it’d be like to have a sibling growing up.”

“How is it?”

“I’m glad I didn’t. I think I would’ve killed you.”

“Tried to.”

He chuckled. When he fell silent, the whole forest did. Fraught, awkward silence.

“Goodnight, Crosael.”

“Right.”

He stood up and brushed the leaves off his dress.

“Mathal.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad I finally met my little sister.”

She cracked half a smile at him.

“Yeah. Me too.”

If only Mother would keep from pushing him back toward that stupid, murderous teen.

Mathal waited until his last, leaf-crunching step faded in the distance. She set Kulata on the rise and laid down in the leaves.

“Wake me if--anything.”

“Is that a wish?”

She stared at the devil until they coughed and nodded as best as a severed head could.

“Yes, of course. I was kidding, just kidding.”

Mathal laid down in the leaves, face toward the clearing. As beautiful as it was, she couldn’t fall asleep. A soft, murmured song carried under the wind.

“Oh,   
The taste of your lips  
I'm on a ride  
You're toxic I'm slippin' under  
With a taste of a poison paradise

I'm addicted to you  
Don't you know that you're toxic?  
And I love what you do  
Don't you know that you're toxic?”

She drifted off before the end of the chorus.


	31. Children of Flies

Chapter 31: Children of Flies

Mathal woke before dawn. Kulata snored softly on top of the rise. She let them sleep and pulled a chalk nib from the bottom of her pants pocket. She crushed the chalk between her hands and smeared a circle over the leaves. She sat on her knees at its center, alone. Something twinged in her chest as she placed her fingertips on the fallen leaves.

Mathal held her breath. Her aura flared rust red. Her breath hitched as unspeakable, unreadable glyphs wound in black lines up her fingers, her arms, and all the way into her mouth. She even had a new spell. It allowed her to spit her own venom instead of simply a toxin she absorbed.

Her eyes pricked and watered, but the ends of her mouth turned upward. Chelon had been right. The spells came from herself.

She returned to the dam at dawn. Crosael stood at the bottom of the ladder inked with glyphs with a couple of steamed, rice flour buns in either hand. 

“Well, we can’t have that.”

He stuck one of the buns in his mouth and pointed at her. Mud, rain, and dead leaves floating off her and off to the pond of compost under Mother’s house. Crosael tossed her the other bun.

“Thanks.”

“Where’s Kulata?”

“Dead weight. I hid them.”

“Why not just put them upstairs? You can’t hide anything from Mom.”

“Not for long, so let’s go.”

“You know the way to the Maggot Tree?”

She kept her focus on that empty, twingy place in her chest and snapped her fingers in muggy, warming summer air. Burning magic spilt out and spread through her entire body, filling her with nature’s own guiding instinct.

“I do now.”

They trekked in a northwesterly direction, and despite the Etherwood’s shifting trees, the earth stayed true under Mathal’s feet. They cut through the heart of the wood and reached the edge of dark clearing thick with black clouds of smoke.

The Maggot Tree rose three hundred feet above at the heart of the ‘clearing,’ its maze of knotted limbs and glyph-tracing hill of roots kept all surrounding vegetation out. Nearly two hundred years ago, Mother had twisted the two dozen firs, oaks, and redwoods native to this part of the forest into this single, tangled behemoth.

The entrance to the tree was hidden within one of the many deep creases and crevices in the sap-weeping trunk, which stood a hundred feet in diameter. The other crevices housed any number of humanoid-eating vermin. Garbage bin pyres had been placed around the edges of the tree, just outside the root-glyph circle. They belched their stinking clouds solely toward the tree--that had to be the work of the fey.

Crosael nudged Mathal’s shoulder and pointed through the burning, stinking clouds. A lone, shadowy figure ran, stumbled, and crawled over the hill of roots. A subsonic cry from the heart of the Maggot Tree shook Mathal to the pit of her bones. Fmughwa the Deathgorger had called.

A dozen white blurs burst out from a high crevice and dived straight for the screaming...male.

“Rizzardo!”

Magic surged into Mathal’s soles. She leaped fifty feet from the treeline through the smoke and into the birdstorm. She clawed a six-legged gryph down with each hand before hitting the ground. She rolled to a stop, witchlocks slamming a third from the sky.

The other nine latched half their talons into Rizzardo and half into the roots, locking him spread-eagled to the grown. Nine razor-sharp, egg-implanting ovipositors rose out from their abdominal feathers. Rizzardo screamed. Mathal cursed and clapped her hands.

Web exploded out over Rizzardo’s exposed belly. The thick, sticky strands whipped around the white birds and left them sitting ducks. Mathal’s claws didn’t stop tearing until each of the nine, pin-like bodies seeped red into her web.

“That’s lunch sorted,” said Crosael, picking his way delicately over the tangle.

“Asmo be praised,” sobbed Rizzardo.

“It’s seems there’s been a misunderstanding--we’re cannibals.”

Rizzardo screamed and flailed. Mathal smacked Crosael’s shoulder with the back of her knuckles.

“Relax, Fakename.”

“Ahhh--” he stopped mid-scream, “have we met? Wait, yes! You’re Moris’s friend!”

“Mathal.”

“Right, yes, Mathal. And you’re what? A cannibal now? I know you ditched the Orphanage, but that is a significant downgrade.”

“Abe told you?”

“...Abe’s dead, Mathal. Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Tell me now,” she said, her voice as rough and brittle as a wood chip.

Abe had indeed questioned his leadership. He’d found it wanting. So he’d hijacked the ley lines that controlled the Coin memory reader and shared his memory of Tarvi, Mathal, and Gorvio not only with Arael, but every agent who went in for debrief after the apocalypse. That had been every agent. Janiven brought in Executioner Ghontas within the hour, but it was too late.

“Everyone is questioning.”

“That reminds me,” Crosael murmured before cupping a hand to his mouth and shouting up at the Maggot Tree in Aklo, “Fmughwa! How are you holding up? One screech if you’re fine. Two if you could be doing better.”

A single, bone-rattling subsonic shriek pulsed out from the tree and shook its leaves until they pelted each other with the sound of heavy rain. Mathal instinctively clamped her hands over her ears at this distance. Even Crosael half-winced. Rizzardo, tethered in placed under web and the hooked talons of the headless gryphs, screeched back between clenched teeth.

The shriek sounded again.

“Hang in there!” Mathal and Crosael shouted back over their ringing ears and bones.

“Can...can I go now?”

“No.”

Mathal wiped her eyes on her sleeve and ended her spell with a shift of thought. Crosael was right. They had a job to do, and unlike Mother, Fmughwa the Deathgorger was an innocent, giant beetle who actually needed saving. They ripped the dead gryphs off Rizzardo, Crosael helping him up by the back of his shirt.

“Let’s have the camp layout.”

Rizzardo had been the only one of his team to have survived the onslaught of the Maggot Tree, but no harm had come to the main camp. The Orphans’s fey allies had hidden it from the vermin of the Tree, and three teams of fey constantly patrolled the border. At the camp’s center, four ogres and a hill giant guarded their headquarters.

Moreover, Rizzardo and his team were supposed to have returned to the camp by whatever passed for dawn under the constant Etherwood shadows. The fey would’ve sent for reinforcements, due to arrive at any time.

“They’re all Ethercourt people except for me and Arael.”

“If that’s all you’ve got for us, then I suppose we should get going.”

Arael’s name shook Mathal, but not enough that she missed Crosael’s shifting grip on the back of Rizzardo’s shirt. She caught his eye and narrowed her own. He sighed and simply dropped Rizzardo onto his feet.

“Take us to the camp and stay behind us, or I’ll let my brother eat you.”

“Ha…,” Rizzardo shuddered, “ah, the fey’s ward won’t let you in unless you’re a fey or you’ve got a coin.”

“Take us. Now.”

They followed Rizzardo thirty minutes out from the Tree into forest that looked no different from any other stretch of forest. He stopped and pointed at the base of a redwood as wide as a bear was as tall. Mathal cracked her knuckles and squatted at the base of the trunk. This blast from the past may have been rapidly devolving into the likes of Mother’s vistation nightmares, but she couldn’t deny that the hag had given her what she needed most.

“Focus.”

The tips of Mathal’s nails clicked against the rough bark. The barrier flared up in a wall of smoke-gray glyphs. She dragged her fingers across the trunk. Dirt, moss, and wood piled up under the nails. She shook the crud loose with a single flick and drove the knife of her hand through the warded air.

“Break.”

A rust red wave pulse from her hand. The red followed of the curl of each glyph it touched. They disintegrated into a rain of rust red grit, vanishing before it hit the forest floor.

A tent at the center of a large clearing magically devoid of any tree stumps appeared to the sound of roaring ogres and a hill giant’s trumpet. Crosael joined in with the ringing of his bell.

“After you.”

Mathal snorted. She turned her skin to iron scales and stepped through the breaking barrier.

The ogres charged in swinging.

“Eat.”

The forest floor turned to a grasping quagmire under their feet and dragged them down. The hill giant jumped from head to sinking head like stepping stones. She couldn’t waste her last spell of devouring earth on a single target.

Walls of thick white mist billowed up from every side except in front, where the hulking, earth-skinned giant could see them. A bolt of lightning shot from the cloud straight at Mathal.  
Crosael’s shoulder shoved her aside. The bolt struck him with a thundering blow. His black ink only flared olive green. Lightning crackled between his hands, and he hurled the bolt at the giant.

The giant had no such ink. They bellowed in pain as loud as thunder and closed the distance.

Crosael and Mathal dived to either side of the mist tunnel. Rizzardo fell back screaming onto his butt. The giant’s club shattered the ground in front of him. Rizzardo fainted.

Rizzardo wasn’t the giant’s enemy, but giant’s weren’t known for their intelligence, and he was the closest target. For now.

Mathal roared and pounced at the giant. Both claws gouged deep into their hairy flesh. Her metal-cast witchlocks slammed into their bellowing face. 

A lightning bolt stabbed through her back. Her body convulsed at the charge, and she fell to ground at the giant’s feet. The giant grinned and jumped.

Crosael grabbed her ankles and yanked. The giant landed on her hair, breaking only the earth underfoot.

“Go faster,” said Crosael.

His aura flared olive green and hers, rust red. The giant jumped back up. The air held them like quicksand. Mathal leapt to her feet, witchlocks whipping the giant’s bare soles as they retracted. Crosael pounced at their leg, claws ripping red.

Lightning crackled. The two ends streaked toward her from either mist wall. She ground her feet down and clenched her fists. The lightning struck. She screamed a scream she couldn’t hear.

The giant landed hard on their wounded feet. Their shredded leg collapsed under them, bringing their head within range. Mathal and Crosael weaved around their slow-swinging club. Their four claws tore into the giant’s neck. The giant fell. Their head rolled past the mercifully passed out Rizzardo and disappeared through the mist.

Lightning crackled. Crosael stepped between the ends as Mathal stepped back. A mass of invisible fey hurtled into her. A pair of spiny hands grabbed each of her flailing limbs and hauled her into the air. The four fey pulled in opposite directions but spiralled higher and higher to the treetop.

Her witchlocks slammed at anything inches over her arm. A long, spindly fey with bulbous red eyes and the wings of a giant moth grasped their bruised arms and vanished again. Mathal snapped her fingers and cursed unheard.

Her aura condensed into a vibrating cloud of wasps. The four, moth-winged fey let go to bat at the stinging wasps on their arms, necks, and faces. Mathal spun uncontrollably into leaves and scratching branches, but they slowed her down enough for the cloud of wasps to right her.

She dived back through the leaves and tore through the wings of the nearest fey. They dropped like bundle of flailing sticks. Mathal moved on to the next nearest.

The last of her wasps faded back into her aura as her feet touched back on solid ground. Crosael waved at her from a ring of fallen fungal nymphs, mushroom caps and mold sprouting from their sun-deprived skin.

The mist tunnel vanished with the nymphs. Crosael frowned and placed a hand on her shoulder. She saw them. Twelve hairless, shadow-skinned fey with pure black blades in either hand surrounded them. But it seemed they couldn’t fly.

Mathal’s hand closed to a fist.

“Eat.”

Thick, liquid earth rose up under the silent fey and dragged down every last one. The earth closed over them without a sound or a trace.

Without any more fey to hold back the trees, the roots snaked slow through the earth back toward their original positions. Mathal and Crosael set their eyes on the tent at the center of the disappearing clearing. Crosael waded through the slithering roots and shifting trees with their leaves rattling like gentle rain. Mathal scooped Rizzardo up in her arms before the moving forest smothered him and followed, face grim.


	32. A Legacy of Pain

Chapter 32: A Legacy of Pain

They made it all the way to the closed flaps of the tent without any sign of Arael, visible or invisible. Mathal dropped Rizzardo into Crosael’s arms, who dropped him on the ground, and shouldered into the tent.

The white-blond haired half-elf sat at a desk with his back to the door of the tent. He leaned his elbows against the desk, the face so similar to Moris’s rested on his laced fingers.

“Arael.”

“Mathal.”

He didn’t turn. He didn’t move at all.

“Rizzardo told me what happened.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Yeah. We’re not here to kill you. Just stop attacking the Maggot Tree.”

“I can’t. Reinforcements will be here any minute.”

“You’re in charge. Call them off.”

He rose slowly to his feet. His face, what she could see of it behind the long, blond strands, had sunk into the hollows of his skull. His eyes were two silvery-blue pinpricks in black-ringed pits. His clothes hung loose on his skeletal frame.

“Arael, are you--”

“Janiven is in charge.”

“Janiven isn’t here! And you, what happened? Sit down, lie down--”

“You happened!” he spat. “You and Tarvi and Abe! You were my friends. My family. And then she had to kill him. I haven’t done anything since but remember.”

“I’m still your friend. Arael--”

“No. No.”

“A real friend--”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

He rose up into the air, fists shaking. He vanished. She cursed in Aklo.

“I don’t want to fight you! Don’t--”

He blasted her with a cold so intense that her skin turned blue as it burned down to the bone. The force hurled her out of the tent and straight into Crosael, thankfully not still holding Rizzardo. He caught her with a grunt.

“Failure to communicate?”

“No, he’s just hurt--I can talk him down!”

A second blast of cold threw the tent flaps wide. Crosael dropped her and shifted forward, arms spread to catch the arctic wind. His glyphs flared olive green, but frost crystals coated his rags. He threw the wind back at the unseen Arael.

“Freeze,” said Arael in hollow, disembodied Elvish.

A third wind kicked up, slamming into Crosael’s. He grunted and dug in his heels but slid inch by inch toward the slithering roots of the creeping trees.

Mathal shook off the numbing cold and slammed one palm to the ground.

“Teeth.”

Her swarm of implacable fangs burst up from around her hand and shot toward Arael. They sheared sparks harmlessly off his armored aura, but it was enough. She charged in his direction and opened her mouth. Rust red venom geysered out and painted his translucent form.

Arael kept one hand toward Crosael, forcing him closer and closer to the tripping, suffocating tangle. He pointed at Mathal with the other. 

“Burn.”

A twenty-foot ball of roaring fire exploded down at her. She dived as far as she could from the center of the blast, but the searing caught her in the back. Flames ripped her breath away. Heat melted through her scales. The force drove her face-first into the dirt and stone of the earth.

Mathal grasped for her fleeting consciousness, but the waves of pain crushed all thought and darkened all her senses. She shrunk down until all she was and knew was a tiny, wordless scream inside a shell of pain. 

A shell.

A slight twinge in her chest pierced through every layer of hurt. Her aura flared rust red.

She burst up from the Mathal-shaped pit in the earth in a rain of dirt and cutting stone. A bolt of lightning stabbed through her chest. She screamed and fell.

Crosael fell without a scream, his eyes wide with surprise. He clawed at the thick, snaking roots, but they kept coming. They buried him under their heavy tangle.

“Crosael!”

Arael’s red-stained feet touched down in front of Mathal. She staggered up to her hands and knees. He kicked the side of her temple. She hit the ground but crawled right back onto her arms, spitting blood.

“Don’t...do this.”

He held a shaking, red-stained hand over her head.

“Goodbye, Mathal.”

Lightning crackled between his fingertips.

“Arael!”

As she forced herself back up onto her hands and knees, Mathal shifted at the speed of thought. Arms and legs lengthened black and bent in at the joints. Her entire body curved and blackened. Arael’s name turned to a wordless shriek between her venom-dripping mandibles. Their razor-sharp tips sank half a foot through his ribcage.

Arael screamed. Mathal’s mandibles ripped red and silver from his chest. She tossed his limp body aside.

Mathal the spider leaped across the fireball’s twenty-foot crater. She didn’t stopped until she reached Crosael. Her mandibles sliced through the thick roots like paper. She spat out the venom-soaked pulp and snatched him up in one of her eight legs.

She shot web into the branches of the nearest tree and tossed her brother into the strands. He stuck and dangled, but it was good enough for now.

Mathal picked her way back to Arael through the roots. He laid in growing puddle of red, his skin purpling with her venom. Her eight legs shifted back to two arms and two legs. All shook from exertion. 

She collapsed onto her belly but had just enough strength left to roll into the puddle on her back. She turned her ear to the ground, facing Arael upside down.

“You’re poisoned.”

“I’m dying.”

Mathal turned her head to the blue sky over the disappearing clearing. She could’ve healed him if she hadn’t applied her toxin directly to his chest.

“You didn’t have to die.”

“Don’t. You...saved me.”

“WHAT?”

Pure, unadulterated anger pushed her up onto her elbows. Onto her hands and knees. She crawled over Arael’s face. She could barely see it through the burning tears.

“What did you [redacted] say to me?”

“...thank you.”

The last of his breath rattled out of his chest. Mathal roared and slammed her fist by his pointed ear. Red splashed up into their faces. She spat and sobbed and wiped it from her face onto the back of her arm but only smeared it all over herself.

Black flashed in the corner of her eye. Twelve pairs of boots stood at the edge of the creeping treeline. Mathal raised her head. The shadow-skinned fey watched her in silence. She scooped Arael up in her arms and staggered up to her feet.

“Him? Are you here for him? Are you going to bury him?”

They said nothing. The silence only made her angrier. She screamed at them, blinded by tears. She kept screaming until the black blurs faded back into the trees.

\--/--

Mathal burned the body. Crosael and Rizzardo woke in her web before the charred corpse had stopped smoking. The clearing was gone, Arael’s tent buried under the sea of roots and dead leaves. Crosael opened his mouth.

“Don’t.”

He closed it. 

Rizzardo took one look a the charred corpse in the hollow of the tree, paled, and also said nothing. Crosael healed the three of them, even whisking away the last of the blood and dirt off their clothes. Mathal and Crosael helped Rizzardo down. Together, they returned to the Maggot Tree.

The twelve silent fey had taken their smoking bins with them, but the scent of burning still lingered in the clearing. Fmughwa the Deathgorger screeched a subsonic pulse as they approached, one much weaker than before. It barely reached through the thin layers of Mathal’s skin.

She and Crosael scrambled over the tangle of roots and in through a hidden crevice. They climbed up through the soft, innerwood tunnel. They higher they climbed, the hotter the air grew inside the tree. They were both covered in sweat by the time they’d reached the hole to the heart chamber of the Tree. Rings of glyphs like the rings of a natural tree had been carved into the floor and ceiling. They bonded the two dozen separate trunks below into a single, massive trunk extending above.

A black and yellow shelled beetle as large as a covered wagon hunkered down on her belly in a dark corner of the cell. Her yellow, segmented antennae hung limp over her dull, black eyes, each the size of a humanoid head. Her long yellow legs, once as strong as tall shoots of bamboo, had bent and broken and could no longer support her weight.

Mathal inhaled the muggy air with an involuntary hiss, one hand grasping the fabric of her shirt in a fist. Crosael strode past her without stopping.

“Stand back.”

He knelt in front of Fmughwa the familiar’s drooping head and placed his ink-smeared hands under her mandibles. One healing spell wasn’t enough. He cast another. Another.

Mathal turned her back to the sight. Mother had let this happen to her own familiar, her own soul. A blood-boiling scream itched at the bottom of her lungs.

“I need some air.”

“Go. We’ll join you once we’re through.”

She jumped down the tunnel and slid full speed down the twists and turns of the smooth wood. Rizzardo appeared at the end of a turn with his hands and feet braced against the walls. He screamed. She screamed. They all screamed and collided and tumbled out of the Maggot Tree with a map of fresh, new bruises.

“I think I’ve broken something,” Rizzardo winced.

“Can’t have been anything important.”

Crosael would be out of spells by the time he repaired all the damage done to Fmughwa. Mathal was just as magically drained. She didn’t bother getting up off the roots. There was something hypnotic about the slightest sway of the leaves hundreds of feet overhead. Rizzardo stared up at the canopy beside her.

“It’s actually kind of nice here when you’re not being attacked by killer flies or killer spiders or killer bird-things.”

“Gryphs. Mother breeded them.”

“Killer bird-abominations, got it.”

“You’ll like her about the same.”

Rizzardo jerked up straight as a rail, completely ignoring whatever he’d broken.

“The Mother of Flies? If your plan is to hand me over, I’d literally rather you just kill me now.”

“No. We need a place to rest so Crosael can take the three of us back to the city tomorrow.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m taking my chances in the woods.”

“With the fey.”

Rizzardo stopped mid-step. He walked back beside Mathal and sunk down without a word. Both stared up at the slight, mind-numbing sway of the leaves.

They woke with a start at the quake of the ground below. They staggered up and held each other for balance. Fmughwa the Deathgorger reared up on her massive hind legs, forelegs kicking, shell and wings flaring to their full span. Her mandibles opened with a subsonic screech that shook Mathal to the pit of her bones and the spiders, flies, and gryphs from every crevice of the Maggot Tree. Fmughwa landed on its roots and rattled the leaves to the height of its canopy.

Crosael waved grandly at Mathal and Rizzardo from behind the giant beetle’s antennae. He’d spelled away the sweat and smeared black to look right as rain except for the slight shadows under his eyes.

“How do you feel about a shortcut?”

\--/--

Fmughwa burst through the canopy and over the trees of the Etherwood, the three riders on her head whooping and/or screaming into the sunset horizon. Rizzardo sat behind Crosael, his arms locked in a deathgrip around Crosael’s torso. Mathal sat behind him, hands raised to the whipping winds of the beetle’s flight.

The sea of trees stretched for miles in all directions without breaks in the green, but Fmughwa knew the way. Mathal let the wind blow through her, whisking away all thought of where they were going and where they’d been. She whooped and screamed and smiled.


	33. Put on the Red Light

Chapter 33: Put on the Red Light

Fmughwa landed with deliberate lightness on the bridge of stones to Mother’s house. Only the slightest ripple crested out over the rice paddies. Smoke piped up from top of the dam into the sunset sky. 

Mathal and Crosael hopped off either side of the beetle. As Mathal helped Rizzardo down, Mother walked out onto the deck with a familiar horned head in hand, her fist closed around Kulata’s tongue. Mathal’s gut curdled.

She, Crosael, and Rizzardo didn’t have a spare spell between them. Even Crosael’s ink was almost gone. Mother, with her Maggot Tree safe and familiar healed, was at full strength. Mathal couldn’t fight her. She couldn’t even bargain.

Mother smiled. A line of flies rose in a skittering vein along her neck.

“Great job, kids. You really made your mama proud. Mathal, I’ve just got one itsy bitsy little chore for you.”

Mother raised Kulata straight out in front of her like a morbid, sentient toast.

“See, I found your toy after you hid from me, funny girl. We did a lot of talking.”

She jerked their tongue around. Kulata could only hack and cough.

“A lot of talking. But it turns out, you can wish your last wish over to dear old Mother, and it won’t cost either of us a thing. All you have to do is say the words.”

Mathal’s mouth dried as her palms sweated. She couldn’t fight. She had to talk. She couldn’t talk. Tarvi could talk. Tarvi wasn’t here.

Flies pulsed over Mother’s temple.

“I’m only asking because I respect you, funny girl. But if you can’t respect me enough to give an answer…,” her voice dropped and she smiled, a line of flies skittering from lip to lip, buzzing over her teeth, “You’re gonna make me give your tongue a little pull, too.”

Kulata could talk. Mathal’s fists closed, squeezing out a line of sweat.

“Kulata, is that true?” she croaked, eyes forced wide against the instinct to shut.

Mathal breathed hard through gritted teeth, but the pounding in her ears drowned out the sound.

Mother jumped off the deck. Mathal flinched but only for a second. Mother didn’t pounce on her. She landed hard on all fours, one of which was Kulata’s head. Their skull cracked against the stone, but whatever kind of undead they were, they didn’t bleed.

Mother shifted up to her feet and switched her grasp from Kulata’s tongue to their horn. She gave the devil’s head a little shake.

“Tell her.”

“Yes, it’s true, it’s all true.”

Mother stepped closer with each lisped word. In the corners of her eyes, Crosael and Rizzardo each backed away. With Fmughwa the Deathgorger to her back, Mathal had nowhere to go. She was out of options, out of allies, and soon to be out of wishes.

Mother stopped at ten paces, Kulata out in front of her. Mother needed both wishes.

“Ok. Ok,” said Mathal, holding up both of her empty palms. “There’s just something I gotta say to Kulata before I wish them over to you. Something that’s been bothering me.”

“Make it quick, Mathal, my arm’s getting tired.”

“Kulata, you were right. When you said you weren’t my personal talking tote bag, you were right. You’re a soul-stealing piece of [redacted-dacting-dacted], but you’re not an object. You’re a person, and I’m wishing you back to the one that you were.”

“WHAT?”

“You can’t wish back the dead!” Kulata screamed as Mother exploded into a raging cyclone of buzz-sawing flies.

Mathal shut her teeth against her scream and dived into the rice paddy. The flies followed her under the water, their acid biting through her skin even as they drowned. The buzzing black mass weighed her down from all sides, crushing her into the mud of the shallow paddy. 

She screamed a torrent of bubbles. Her nails sheared through the biting bodies. The flies only dulled her claws with their sticky guts and followed the scream down her throat.

The mud of the paddy quaked under her hands and knees. The raging storm of flies pulled away from her body, but a deep shadow and pressure remained over her. She broke the surface of the water choking and spitting up insects under a shiny black exoskeleton.

Fmughwa stood over Mathal, head lowered and mandibles bared at six, possibly five, swarms of biting flies in humanoid form. Mother screamed her inhuman, buzz-sawing scream. Fmughwa screeched back, her subsonic pulse churning the paddy waters. The dam shook. Hemp rope snapped. The wooden ladder fell from the deck to the ground.

Mathal muttered Infernal at a mile a minute in the ensuing silence.

“Kulata, I wish back your full undead body and devilry.”

The paddy on the opposite side of the stones glowed with a soft, rust red light. Kulata’s head rose to the surface, the edge of their neck just below the waterline. The devil grinned.

Rust red flames geysered up in an explosion of searing heat from the earth through the water to the height of the clearing. The blast battered into Fmughwa and rocketed straight through to Mathal and the paddy. The forced ripped away her breath and knocked her back under the water. Her back pounded against the mud, but she kept her chin tucked and waited out the boiling wave.

Mathal crawled up onto a stone, dripping and steaming muddy water. Fmughwa, Crosael, Rizzardo, and Mother all did the same. The flames had vanished. They’d left a second completely naked person in the swamp.

Kulata, seven feet of lean rust red and branched black horns, floated a hair’s breadth over the still surface of the ash-choked water. Black, skeletal wings, possibly just for show, unfurled fifteen feet out to either side. The devil threw back their head with a wild cackle.

Crosael, the first to recover, tossed his hat at Kulata. They only set the hat askew on their horned head.

“Hey mortal, you wanna ditch this joint?”

“Get me the [redacted] out of here.”

The devil whooped and flew into Mathal, sweeping her off her hands and knees. They flew higher and higher into the dusk until the Hagswamp was nothing but a puddle of red mud beneath their feet.

“Where to?”

“Anywhere but here,” said Mathal, voice cracking.

Her eyes burned and blurred. Kulata hefted her up onto their shoulders. She barely had time to grab onto their horns before they zoomed off yelling full speed ahead. Mathal screamed into the wind. It roared away all sound and tears.

Kulata descended twenty minutes later over some far grove of the Etherwood, no different from any other spot in the sea of green. The devil set them gently down on the topmost branch of the canopy. They sat side by side among the leaves and watched the stars wake only an arm’s length away.

“You could’ve wished for anything.”

“I wouldn’t do that to Chelon. And it was the right thing to do. I think.”

“Future contractees will certainly think twice about treating me as an object now.”

“So you’re just going to go off and steal more souls?”

“That is my Hell-designated occupation.”

“This isn’t Hell.”

Kulata remained silent for a full minute.

“I’m not going back to Westcrown. It’s been too long. I need to stretch my literal and figurative wings.”

“I still have one more wish.”

“So I recall,” the devil smiled.

They turned to face her, offering up both palms. She turned and placed her hands on theirs, frowning in question.

“Mathal, I give to you my true name and trust it in your confidence. When you decide to make your final wish, speak ‘Khazrae,’ and I’ll be forced to appear.”

“Naked?”

“Hopefully I’ll have found some decent clothes by then.”

“Will you come back with me to my mom’s place?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Kulata.”

“I’m already here. And naked. You can call me by my name--if you like, no pressure.”

She snorted.

“Thanks, Khazrae.”

Mathal turned away, back toward the stars. They sat in silence with nothing but the night breeze between them.

\--/--

They returned to the house at midnight. A thin trail of smoke still piped up from its heart. Fmughwa clung to its underside, snoring peacefully over the stinking compost.

Mathal pounded on the dam door with Khazrae at her back. Crosael, followed closely by Rizzardo, let them in.

Mother didn’t look up from where she sat cross-legged by the chalk circle of fire. Mathal sat across from Mother but kept her eyes on the flames flickering between them. Khazrae placed a hand on her shoulder. She gave them a nod and a pat. It was all the support she needed. The devil went to sit in the corner with Crosael and Rizzardo.

“I don’t forgive you.”

“Good. I raised a killer, not a forgiver.”

The flies in her face extended the ends of her mouth into a skittering smile.

“I’m not here to kill you, either.”

“Weak.”

“When I leave tomorrow, I’m never coming back. I know that probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means something to me.”

The fire popped and crackled in the silence between them.

“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” Mother muttered.

“You would’ve had to kill your own familiar first.”

Mother pounded her fist to the ground. Mathal jumped.

“I know!” 

Mathal straightened from her defensive hunch as Mother straightened from her lunge. The flies pulsed at her temple, but when she spoke, her voice was as even as Tarvi’s ice.

“I hate you for that.”

Mathal’s gut clenched and eyes pricked as though she’d taken a punch. She stood up.

“You’ve never treated me like a daughter!”

“Because you’re just a tool!”

Mother rose and the fire rose to greet her. She stepped into the chalk circle to a point one black-nailed finger into Mathal’s face.

“You’re nothing without your strength. The strength that I gave you.”

Her pointing finger traced an arc of flame over at the three in the corner.

“Why do you think they cling to you? Why do you think you even have friends?”

“I’m strong because of them!”

Rizzardo pointed at himself and looked from Crosael to Khazrae in confusion.

“Not him. My real friends. We’re stronger than you could ever make me.”

Mother lowered her arm, her head. Her shoulders shook. She threw her head back in wild, cackling laughter. The flames roared up around her in a crackling chorus.

Mathal turned her back to the burning and walked away. Khazrae followed her to the door. Rizzardo hurried after them. She let them out first.

She stood in the doorway, half her body in the cool night breeze. She raised her voice just enough to be heard through the hyena cackles.

“Crosael, you wanna go camping with us?”

Crosael looked back at Mother. He gave her a little wave and bolted through the open door. 

Mathal did not look back.


	34. The Squatters Club

Chapter 34: The Squatters Club

Mathal and Crosael woke at dawn on opposite sides of Rizzardo spooning Khazrae. The two crawled to the dead leaves ten paces away from their fellow sleeping campers. 

Mathal checked her pockets. She hadn’t brought any chalk and was out of nibs. She crunched her way over to Crosael and crouched beside him. Before she could mumble about borrowing, he broke his chalkstick in two and slapped a half in her palm without looking up.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

Mathal broke the half into fourths and crumbled the white dust of one of the nibs in her hands. She smeared a circle over the leaves. She had two new spells for herself. The first let her pass through barriers and other walls without a trace. The second, seemingly picked up from her brother, let her see things as they were, visible or invisible. 

She let out a low cackle. Those invisible [redacted] vampires could suck it. If, for some god-forsaken reason, she encountered them again. Then again, she hadn’t counted on ever seeing Crosael again.

Her stomach growled. She crawled back over to Crosael. His stomach growled sympathetically.

“Wake them up. I’ll take us back to the city and we can get some breakfast.”

“I’m broke.”

Crosael cursed.

“What?”

“I’m not, but I’ve betrayed the late mayor of Westcrown and the Orphanage and Vassindio Drovenge by extension, so I have to lay thrice-damned low. I can’t simply walk into the bank.”

Mathal cursed. With her new spell, that was exactly what she could do. What Mother would do.

“Let’em sleep. I’m going hunting.”

As she crawled toward the woods, she shifted. Arms and legs darkened, lengthened, and bent. She sprouted four more. Her body curved and hardened to smooth, black exoskeleton.

“Go easy on the venom!”

She hissed an acknowledgment between her dagger-fanged mandibles.

\--/--

Khazrae and Rizzardo woke at noon to the sizzle and pop of boar bacon skewers over the campfire. It had taken less than hour for Mathal to snare the boar in her web, but she and Crosael had a Hell of a time trying to process the meat with nothing but their nails and a few sharpened sticks. The four were too hungry to care about the wonky shape of the meat. Rizzardo immediately snatched at a half-cooked skewer. Crosael slapped his hand away.

Mathal, Crosael, Rizzardo, and Khazrae sat down to brunch at four points around the campfire. Crosael passed out the first four skewers, setting four more on the makeshift barbeque. Mathal and Rizzardo tore through them in seconds. Khazrae pulled the meat off the stick. They held the skewer between their knees and ripped little pieces off from the wonky cube.

“If you want to play with your food, hunt it yourself,” said Crosael.

“I’d be more than happy to take that stick off your hands...legs...wherever,” Rizzardo hiccoughed.

Mathal cracked her greasy knuckles in warning, but Khazrae only chuckled. They plucked up the skewer in the skeletal claw of their wing and extended it out over the fire to Rizzardo. He grabbed it between his teeth with an exaggerated growl. Khazrae laughed. Then they all did, even Mathal joining in with a little chuckle.

After a few hours of cooking and eating, the boar feast ended. They sat back on their arms and let their stomachs rest, everyone but Khazrae. The devil rose to their feet. They dusted the dead leaves off their naked bodies and shook them from their wings.

“I’ve never been one for goodbyes, so I’ll just say that it’s been a pleasure a meet you all, and we should definitely part ways before that’s no longer the case.”

Khazrae pulled the hat off their head and horns. Crosael shook his head.

“That’s not where I thought you’d put it, but it looks good on you. It’s yours if you want it.”

“Why, thank you, Crosael,” the devil smiled.

His face flushed, and he waved his hand. Khazrae waved at them all, black-taloned fingers waggling. The devil turned and walked into the woods.

Mathal’s fists closed around the leaves as she watched them disappear between the trees. Crosael’s eye caught hers.

“Just because they don’t like goodbyes doesn’t mean they won’t listen to yours.”

Rizzardo nodded.

“Go get that devil.”

Mathal stood. She ran into the woods. She ran and ran until her legs and lungs burned from exertion. She ran long enough that she suspected Khazrae had spread their wings and flown away. She slumped against the nearest tree, huffing.

The lines of the trees steadied and straightened out in front of her. In the distance, she spotted a little blot of red. She launched herself off the tree.

“K!”

Khazrae stopped. They didn’t turn, but their wings flared an inch open at the joints. Mathal skidded to a stop ten paces short in a flurry of leaves.

“Hi, Mathal.”

“Hi.”

“Did you think of a wish?”

“No. I just wanted you to know you’re my friend. I know you don’t have many of those.”

“I don’t have any.”

“You have one.”

Khazrae’s wings twitched.

“Mathal. I’m s--”

“Don’t.”

Khazrae remained silent for a full minute.

“Goodbye, Mathal.”

“Goodbye.”

\--/--

By the time Mathal walked back to the camp, the fire had burnt down to embers and ashes. She, Crosael, and Rizzardo sat on a log, poking at the ashes with long sticks. They couldn’t stay in the forest. They didn’t want to stay in the forest. But Rizzardo had also betrayed the Orphanage. 

It was possible Fiosa would welcome him to The Way Station, but she wouldn’t welcome Crosael. Mathal herself wasn’t ready to face Fiosa again. She was even less ready to face Tarvi. They all needed somewhere they could simply disappear. 

Mathal snapped her fingers.

“I know a place we can squat. It’s a little haunted, and we might have to drive out some vampires, but otherwise it’s abandoned and perfect.”

“Will we have to share a room?” asked Rizzardo.

“No.”

“I’m in.”

Crosael tossed his stick into the ashes.

“Can you glyph the name of place?”

“Yeah.”

He passed her a full stick of chalk.

“Come help me with the circle.”

They smeared the teleportation circle out together, the leaves crinkling like brittle pages under their hands. When they were ready, the three joined hands. The circle flared olive green first and rust red second. 

The world stopped spinning on the Delvehaven porch. The front doors stood ajar. They must’ve left them open when they’d run off to stop the apocalypse another lifetime ago.

Rizzardo’s low whistle echoed down the entrance hall. He immediately scampered up the curling stair.

“There’s gotta be something here we could hawk,” he called down from the second floor landing.

“If it isn’t haunted, it’s probably cursed.”

The one relic they had found here had proven next to useless.

Mathal and Crosael followed him up to the bedrooms. Rizzardo pushed the nearest door open with his foot. Metal screeched against metal. The blankets had been disturbed, but a new layer of dust had nearly covered the footprints in the old dust. It must’ve been Gorvio’s room. Crosael coughed and waved his hand in front of his face at the cloud.

“First things first--we clean this place up.”

“I’m gonna look for food,” said Mathal.

“I’m with her.”

“[Redact] you guys. Let me know if you find anything.”

Mathal brought Rizzardo downstairs and then down into the haunted basement to find the pantry. She summoned her spider swarm into every room to trigger any haunts before entry. The Natural History Exhibit chewed the spiders to a sticky black pulp. Rizzardo threw up.

They searched the pantry for cleaning materials first, food far from their mind. Fortunately. Everything edible had already been scavenged by rats, judging from the droppings. They did, however, find bottles and bottles of alcohol. They wrapped them up in a dusty, musty, moldy carpet and dragged the whole clinking haul up from the basement so they wouldn’t have to go back through the Exhibit.

“You weren’t kidding about this place being haunted.”

“Nope.”

“So are we gonna have to fight off a bunch vampires whenever the sun sets?”

“I’ll ask Crosael.”

She went back up the stairs. Rizzardo left the carpet of booze at the bottom of the stairs and followed her up. Crosael had an entire host of unseen magickal forces dusting, scrubbing, and straightening the bedrooms. He conducted them from the center of a chalk circle out in the hall where he sat cross-legged, eyes closed.

“Smell any dead people?”

“Some very old whiffs. Other than that, I’ve only smelled you, Kulata, and those three actor friends of yours.”

“Perfect!” said Rizzardo. “We’re getting drunk.”

“Not until this place stops threatening me with a fatal dust allergy.”

“I’ll bring one up.”

“Tequila, if they have it, thanks.”

Rizzardo slid down the rail of the stairs singing:

“Nibbling on sponge cake, watching the sun bake  
All of those tourists covered with oil  
Strumming my six string, on my front porch swing  
Smell those shrimp, they're beginning to boil.”

They started slow, but they soon stacked their drained bottles past the rail of the stairs on the first floor landing. Mathal and Rizzardo grabbed every dusty, creaking chair they could find and shoved them together under the other side of the curling staircase. They crawled into the chair city on their bellies to admire the height of their bottle tower. The dust showered down on them every time they bumped a seat or a leg.

“I’m pretending I’m being showered by gold,” Rizzardo coughed.

“Don’t do that,” Mathal coughed back.

He laughed, forehead smacking the ground. He only laughed harder. Mathal dropped her head onto the stack of her forearms, laughing with him.

When the dust and laughter settled, they rolled onto their backs with only their heads poking out from under the seats of the chairs. The high, vaulted ceiling spiraled infinitely up and away. Rizzardo pointed a finger up at the nexus of arches at the ceiling’s center.

“Old.”

“Know something older?”

“No, what?”

“Vampires.”

He laughed until he wheezed in pain.

“Not joking.”

“Oh. Sorry. Ok. Old [redacted] vampires. I bet they’ve got some old [redacted] money, too.”

“Old money,” she snorted.

She stopped.

“No, yeah! Old money!”

“Whoo! Yeah!”

“No, no, no! The vampires probably do have money. They don’t need money. They just need people to murder. Like Moris.”

“Moris!” Rizzardo sobbed, raising an imaginary toast with un-imagined feeling.

Mathal imaginarily clinked his glass. He wiped his eyes on the back of his dusty sleeves.

“Life sucks like that.”

“Rizzardo. We. Could take. Their money.”

“What? Woah, yeah! You’re right! Steal from the rich...and give to us!”

“Crosael!”

“Crosael!”

Crosael didn’t answer. They scrambled out from under chair city and scampered up the stairs on all fours. An empty bottle of tequila had rolled to a stop in the doorway of a half-spic, half-spanned bedroom. Crosael still sat cross-legged in his circle of chalk, but his head slumped to one side. They shook him awake by the knees and shoulders.

“Crosael!”

“Crosael!”

“Wha…?”

“We need your nose!”

“Nose thieves!”

“Wha…?”

“No, no. Can you smell us to the vampires?”

“We need to stink out their old money!”

Crosael flapped a limp-fingered hand at the nearest window.

“It’s almost shadowtime. Not--not tonight.”

“Fine, tomorrow.”

Mathal and Rizzardo high-fived. Crosael dropped to his back, snoring before he hit the floor.


	35. Plan Drunk, Heist Hungover

Chapter 35: Plan Drunk, Heist Hungover

Mathal crawled out from chair city into bright, eye-stabbing light. She massaged her throbbing head with an incoherent grumble and continued to crawl on all fours up the curling staircase. Crosael and Rizzardo had fallen asleep over a chalk smear, Rizzardo spooning her brother. Mathal shook their ankles. Crosael woke with a wince and Rizzardo with a loud groan deep from the core. 

Mathal and Crosael crawled off to set their spells for the day. Rizzardo went back to sleep for another hour.

There wasn’t a scrap of solid food in the guildhall, but the plumbing still worked and there were plenty of opened but unfinished bottles of alcohol. Mathal and Crosael had water for breakfast. Rizzardo grabbed a bottle for the road.

All three used their magic detection to stumble safely through Delvehaven’s lawn and out into the wide, overbright and overloud world. As Crosael led them over the bridge to the isle of the rich, his fingers twitched. He reached up to pull down the brim of a floppy hat long gone from his head. He muttered Aklo curses under his breath.

A pair of donkeys pulled a merchant cart past. In a single, fluid motion, Crosael snagged the end of a olive green cloth sheet from the back of the cart. Thankfully, there wasn’t a guard or Hellknight in sight, likely all paid off to act as personal guards to the Council nobles to stave off assassination while they negotiated for the position of lord-mayor.

As they walked and the cart wheeled away, it continued to unroll between them. Mathal snicked her nail through the taut sheet. He wrapped his end shawl-like over his head and shoulders. The cart’s end flapped into the mud, much to the amusement of two small children on the hands of their parent. She punched his cloaked shoulder.

“You can turn invisible.”

He cursed.

“You’re right.”

He vanished just as the merchant stopped the cart and climbed out to investigate the source of the children’s laughter.

“Follow the sound of my voice.”

“Who said that?” asked Rizzardo, squinting into the middle distance.

Mathal rubbed a temple and grabbed Rizzardo’s non-drinking hand. She pulled him in the direction of Crosael’s humming. Not four blocks into the island, her brother stopped and cursed again.

“What?”

“You’re vampires weren’t the ones at the crater, were they?”

“Yeah…”

“Chances are likely they’re allied with House Oberigo. We’re about to cross into their territory, and I really can’t be seen there.”

House Drovenge and House Oberigo were the two most powerful noble houses in the city, making Vassindio Drovenge and Eirtein Oberigo the top two candidates for Westcrown’s next lord-mayor. Oberigo’s vampires had murdered Moris and tried to murder Tarvi, however. By extension, Mathal was not a fan. She was, in fact, even more determined to steal from them both.

The further they walked through blocks, the more Hellknights and dottari they spotted in the street corners and the edges of intersections. Mathal pried the bottle out of Rizzardo’s hand and shoved it into his backpack.

“You know, in some places stealing is a punishable offense,” he slurred.

She said nothing. If she’d known he’d be so affected, she’d never have let him leave the guildhall. Better he didn’t realize the bottle was still on his person.

“There, Walcourt.”

Wrought iron and twisting creeper vines walled off an entire block from the cobblestone street. The narrow gaps offered a glimpse of stone building whose stout, two-story shape predated the gothic style favored by the royal house of Thrune. Bricks closed off every window, pocketing the gray, river stone walls with sightless red eyes. Green vines connected eye to eye like a net of veins.

With a group of dottari on their side of the street, they couldn’t stop walking within sight of the building. Mathal and Crosael ducked down the nearest alley and into its merciful shade. Rizzardo stopped to look for where they’d gotten to. They yanked him in after them, Crosael’s reappearing hand over his mouth.

“Sorry about this, Mathal, but I don’t have much invisibility left. I’m afraid I’m ditching this heist. Do you want me to take him with me?”

Mathal cursed.

“Rizzardo, can you--are you capable of backup right now?”

“Pfft, I was born ready.”

“Take him.”

“Rizzardo, I’m going to disappear. I need you to follow the sound of my voice, alright?”

“I see you loud and clear.”

“Good luck.”

“Same.”

Mathal waited for them to leave the alley before crouching low to the ground in the direction of Walcourt. At her current strength, each cast of her wall-passing jaunt would only last for a minute and twenty four seconds. She was two hundred and fifty feet away from the gate, as the crow flew. In reality, buildings, civilians, and the odd carriage all stood between her and Walcourt. She rubbed her pounding temple.

“Focus.”

Every ounce of weight vacuumed out of her body. Her head rushed toward the ground at the shock. Her invisible hands slipped through the pavement. She bit back a yelp as she nearly catapulted herself through the street into the sewers below. She could see the tunnels through the stone not thirty feet under the cobblestones.

“Woah,” she breathed soundlessly into the earth.

Mathal tilted back up to the surface. One minute and eighteen seconds remaining.

“Gotta go fast.”

Magic surged into the soles of her feet. Mathal held her nonexistent breath. She pushed off from the ground. Mathal launched head-first through the alley and into the wall. She screamed.

Her ethereal body ripped through wood, wall, stone, furniture. She passed through other bodies in a churning swirl of organs. She hurtled across the street and through Walcourt’s iron gate into vine-choked building itself, tumbling and rolling through the wall to a stop inside a dark, cramped room.

Mathal uncurled herself from her protective balling and floated slightly up through and off the floor. A wall of hats of hooks stretched out beside her. There was a farmer’s straw cover, a fisherman’s hat, a safari cap, a naval captain’s tricorn and more--twelve in all. She grabbed at a floppy, wide-brimmed hat, but her hand passed straight through.

Behind the wall of the walk-in closet was a small room with no apparent door. The room itself was empty except for an open shaft through the floor, which only made it emptier. Mathal crossed over and floated down through the shaft.

She followed the shaft over a seventy feet down into the earth and below the city sewers. An unlit hallway appeared at the gray edge of her ethereal vision. Heavy wooden doors lined the long stretch of walls with a metal ring of keys dangling from a hook to the south. Behind each door, a desiccated humanoid body dangled from shackles on the wall--except for one. The cell held a filthy, ragged-clothed half-elf, emaciated but breathing.

“Moris?”

Her focus shattered. The force of her own weight dropped back into her body and knocked her to the floor. Moris raised his head at the thunk, platinum-blond locks barely parting over his sunken face, uncomfortably and exactly like Arael’s.

“Mathal?” he rasped.

She leaped up and buried her prickling eyes into his bony shoulder. He’d lost so much weight that his arms stretched across the wall like the wings of a dissected bug in the Natural History Exhibit.

“Wait, wait.”

She burned through a wall-walking spell to grab the ring of keys. She unlocked the cell door and unlocked his manacles. He fell into her arms, shoulders shaking, and buried his eyes into her shoulder.

“You found me.”

Her throat closed up over her words. He was alive. That was good enough for now. Tarvi would be ecstatic.

Metal screeched on metal hinge behind them. Mathal whipped around, her witchlocks catching Moris behind her. 

In the doorway of the cell, she saw herself--older, slimmer, and with streaks of white in her waist-length, seal brown hair. Her elder sibling’s witchlocks floated and splayed out weblike behind their narrowing hazel eyes.

“Silana--”

Silana screeched sharper than metal. Liquid black shadow gushed out between their fangs and imploded over their entire body, coating their witchlocks even as a spine of twenty-foot black tentacles erupted from their back.

“Web!”

Thick white strands exploded out at Silana. They jumped into a twist of whirling tentacles. The tentacles shot through the gaps in the web. They gripped and released even the tiniest cracks in the stone.

Silana flipped down to the cell floor. Their tentacles launched at Mathal and Moris in a wall of black spears.

Mathal’s witchlocks snagged Moris back to her. She turned her back to the spears and hexed herself. Moris screamed.

Fibers frayed. Bone snapped. They stitched and knit hard and strong as steel. 

But Silana’s spears lanced between muscle and bone. Mathal roared. Whiteness exploded behind her eyes. She huffed and grunted and ground her teeth as the spears drilled through her back as fast as her body could repair.

“Eat.”

The earth came up hungry and grasping. For every quagmire wave, three black tentacles shot down. They deflected the earth against the scraping grit. 

None of tentacles pulled out from inside her back. They wrapped around the continuous growths. Silana yanked skeleton and tendon.

Mathal flew out from the cell. She slammed against the opposite door. The heavy wood snapped under her back. Splinters sprayed straight into her muscles.

She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t breathe. She channeled every last ounce of strength into her hair and limbs. Witchlocks wrapped around the tentacles. She braced her feet and pushed.

Tentacles stretched taut between her hair and heels. Her claws ripped through the black shadows.

Tentacles snapped. Silana doubled over and screeched. Black spears shot from her back, two for every one wrecked. They tore through Mathal. 

Pain exploded into a swallowing darkness. She blacked out before they finished impaling her half-formed body to the stone wall of the cell.


	36. The Parent Trap

Chapter 36: The Parent Trap

Mathal woke grunting in a cold sweat. A splintering ache lanced through every bone, but she wasn’t bleeding. The air clung too close and thin to her clammy skin. There was no light, but every stone in the cell appeared too sharp as though they were trying to cut themselves out of her sight.

Her aura. She couldn’t feel her aura.

Her chest burned. She couldn’t fill her lungs. She tried short, shallow inhales to steady her breath. The air only turned to fire faster. Her lungs shriveled down to nothing, taking her into blackness with them.

\--/--

Metal screeched on metal hinge. Mathal winced awake, hands instinctively trying to clamp over her ears. They jerked against heavy metal shackles. She hung from the wall drenched in sweat.

Silana stood in the doorway. They’d changed their coat of attacking shadow tentacles for a flat cap and a suit in midnight blue. Their arms folded across their chest. They walked with slow steps into the cell. The wooden door screeched shut behind them.

“Why would Mother send a bug to kill a dragon?” they asked, their voice a low, Aklo hiss.

“She didn’t,” Mathal huffed. “Was just there. Thinks you’re dead.”

Their demi-monolid eyes widened. Silana’s back bumped the side wall. They lowered down to a squat.

“What...what did she say?”

Figures. 

 

“She knew. One day, you’d be dead.”

Silana, damn them. You see them in Hell, you beat them into lemure pudding, got it?

“Was angry. Death took you away.”

Silana bit back a sound between a grunt, a snort, and a choke. They stared at the opposite wall for a long time, long enough that they dropped out from their squat to sit with their legs flat against the floor and knuckles in the dust, propped up only by the wall at their back.

Mathal said nothing. All her focus went back to steadying the breath in her burning lungs.

“Who are you?”

“Mathal, your younger sister.”

“You are my replacement.”

“Technically, but I cut Mom off. She’s gonna need a replacement for a replacement...if she ever wants to get a coven going again.”

“She just enjoys having the option.”

Mathal snorted fire and winced.

“What are doing here if aren’t here for her?”

“Tracked some vampires here. Thought they’d killed my friend, so I was gonna rob them.”

“Morosino?” Silana snorted. “No, we’d never kill him. We haven’t even turned him. He ran away, but that is to be expected with pets.”

“So you’re just gonna let him suffer and starve down here?”

“Yesterday was the last day of his punishment.”

She could see why he’d run away.

“I can’t feel my aura.”

“It’s the chains.”

Silana had glyphed anti-magic into every chain in the Walcourt dungeon themself. That explained one thing, but left a world a questions.

“Why are you even with the vampires?”

“A home is a home is a home.”

“Maybe they’re better than Mother, but look what they did to Moris. A person ain’t a toy. No. They’re exactly the same as Mother.”

“You know nothing--”

“You wanna know what Mom called me?”

“...what did she call you?”

“A tool. See if you can call yourself any better.”

In the blink of an eye, Silana was on their feet in front of Mathal. Their black nails whipped across her face. Her neck cracked. Red sprayed.

Mathal’s head hung limp from her shoulders. She hadn’t hexed herself, but she could feel the itching, aching throb of muscle and bone realigning under her skin. If Silana could see the skittering tendons, they gave no sign of it.

Metal screeched. A deathly pale Taldan now occupied the doorway. A gray star over a black shield dangled from their black-beaded rosary.

“Silana, you’ve let breakfast bleed out all over the floor out he--”

The cleric’s eyes flicked from the dungeon hall to Silana to Mathal. Jair’s mouth twisted into a pitiless grin.

“If it isn’t Gorvio the Dog-Killer.”

Silana raised a questioning eyebrow. Mathal gave them the slightest shake of her head.

“I assume you’re here about our army of shadow mastiffs.”

In the blink of an eye, Silana pulled Jair into the cell and back-handed their shoulder.

“Ow, what was that for? Isn’t this the replacement? We’re all upstairs getting hungry.”

“Right.”

Silana grabbed the chains that shackled Mathal’s arm to the wall. They murmured in a language she’d never heard. The metal links under their fists loosed from either chain. They brought both free ends together in front of Mathal. The links, shadow black in Silana’s hands, passed through each other and locked in their new formation. Mathal would’ve been impressed if she wasn’t the one in the cuffs.

“Try anything and I’ll kill you myself.”

“Now, now, Silana, that’s no way to talk to your food.”

“The same goes to you.”

Silana shoved Jair out of the cell. Mathal followed them out into the hall and under the long, hidden shaft. Jair flew up first, their dry snickers echoing and fading after them. Silana scooped Mathal up in their arms and flew up after them. The two siblings kept their gazes pointedly averted.

A false wall in the hidden chamber beside the walk-in closet opened into the main hall where Jair waited for them. Silana set Mathal back on her feet. She followed them up a flight of hairs and down the next hall. They stopped before a pair of rich mahogany doors. Silana and Jair each held one open.

Mathal stepped into a huge chamber supported by twelve thick columns of stone. Black curtains covered the bricked-over walls and between them hung oil portraits of unhappy nobles in gilded frames. A chandelier of black iron dangled from the center of the ceiling. Its squat, black candles were unlit. Below, a massive slate table stood in the center of the room set with fine porcelain, crystal goblets, and gold utensils.

A willowy, deathly pale elf with long, platinum-blond hair and silvery blue eyes sat at the head of the table in a crimson suit. On their left was an empty, leather-bound chair and a black-suited Taldan with a shock of red hair, Vahn, Delver Vahn. Moris sat on their right. 

Though still emaciated, Moris had bathed and dressed in pink silk. A matching pink ribbon pulled his hair off his hollowed, shrunken face and bound it in a short tail. His eyes met Mathal’s absently, glazed over with despair.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped.

“Morosino,” the elf drawled in Elvish, “do you know this living one?”

Moris’s eyes darted from the elf to Mathal to Silana and back. His head gave an ambiguous half-shake.

“Who is this, Silana?”

“This is Mathal. She’s...my sister.”

The elf’s mouth opened in a little, exaggerated ‘O’. They stood with a generous smile and an even more generous bow. A black baton with an iron topper of batwings dangled from their belt.

“Silana, you’ve outdone yourself again. Mathal, what an honor it is to meet you. My name is Ilnerik Sivanshin, he/him. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to drink the blood of a cannibal.”

Jair grabbed Mathal and flung her back-first onto the empty center of the table. She grunted and kicked up, but the cleric caught her by the throat and shoved her back down. Moris sprang to his feet, chair clattering behind him. He clung to Ilnerik’s arm.

“No, no, no! Father! Please!”

Silana slumped into the seat beside Vahn. Sivanshin held up his left palm, laughing. Jair let go, hopping over to the seat beside Moris’s. Mathal sat up onto her elbows, huffing and glaring over her shoulder.

“What?” asked Sivanshin, “Are you going fight Silana for the first bite?”

“No, I--please, don’t kill her.”

“You’d rather I turned her? She would outlive you, you know. And then she would be--”

“I’d rather you let her go. Mathal’s my friend.”

Sivanshin laughed. Jair joined in snickering. The grim-faced Vahn even cracked half a smile. Sivanshin held up his palm and they fell back into immediate silence. His smile shrivelled.

“Weak.”

A muscle twitched in Silana’s jaw, but when they raised their head, their face was completely blank.

“Sorry, Morris. Friend or not, she’s my sister. Family first.”

Silana sprang up onto the table, feet on either side of Mathal. Mathal kicked up only to get slammed back down. The stone table cracked under her back and spinning head.

Silana dropped to one knee. They clamped one hand around Mathal’s neck. She flailed, her lungs back to burning. Darkness seeped into the corners of her eyes.

Silana’s other hand closed around the chain between her wrists. They pulled Mathal up to sitting and leaned in by her neck. Their putrid, undead breath was as cold as ice.

“I’m loathe to admit it, but...I think you were right.”

The cuffs slipped from Mathal’s wrists as insubstantial as shadow. She grit her teeth to keep the shock off her face. Without a moment to lose, she hexed herself.


	37. The Bearable Lightness of Being

Chapter 37: The Bearable Lightness of Being

Bone snapped and muscle tore. Mathal didn’t have to look to know the vampires noticed. Moris screamed and threw himself at Sivanshin. Two hands of force stabbed their claws into her brain. Her aura flared rust red. Jair and Vahn’s mental domination spells burned to nothing.

Mathal roared and pushed off the table into a twist. She landed right-side up on all strengthened fours.

Sivanshin flung Moris off at a massive stone pillar. He ground his feet to floor and skidded short of a collision. Sivanshin, Jair, and Vahn vanished.

“Mathal! The stick! Get the stick!”

Moris raised his hand to the air. Metal whistled through the air in the distance.

“Got it.”

Mathal clapped her palms together. Her aura condensed into a buzzing, whirling swarm of wasps. She wasn’t done. When she opened her eyes, her sight pierced through magic itself. The vampires couldn’t hide.

The doors burst open behind them. A wickedly curved blade flew straight to Moris’s hand. A horde of paralyzing shadow beasts stormed in after in a vortex of liquid black.

Moris and Mathal screamed. Silana ran off the end of the table into the air. They spread their arms. The same liquid black flowed over them. Tens upon tens of shadowed witchlocks and tentacles shot out from behind Silana at the the army of shadows, whipping, spearing, and forcing the beasts back to the doorway.

“Don’t just stand there! Get the [redacted] stick!” they screeched.

Vahn spun into a vicious kick in the swarm at Mathal’s head. Jair’s sword slashed at her back. Mathal’s witchlocks slammed into Jair’s blade and threw him off. She caught Vahn’s heel in her hand. She dug in her nails and snapped the flailing ankle.

Moris floated off the ground. He shifted between Jair and the wasps at her back.

Sivanshin drew a long, thin blade. As the rapier left its sheath, black shadow flames lit over the metal. He flew into a lunge at Mathal.

Mathal’s witchlocks batted away the foot kicking into the swarm and both hands gripped Vahn’s stung and broken ankle. She flung the one vampire at the other vampire. 

Vahn screamed. Sivanshin swatted his ally into a pillar as though swatting a fly. Vahn crashed and snapped against the stone. Sivanshin’s charge never slowed. His blade pierced the swarm of wasps. Its black flame flared up in every direction, consuming.

Mathal jerked out of the path of the blade. The edge of the shadow fire caught her sleeve. It burned a smokeless hole through the fabric.

“Iron!”

The lunges came hard and fast. She threw up her metalled nails against the barrage. Sparks sprayed only to wink out in the black fire. Scale by scale, the rapier ate away her metal coat. 

Sivanshin forced her back. The last of the wasps disintegrated back into her aura. Mathal yelped and crashed into a pillar. Her metalled witchlocks clung to the gaps between the stone.

Sivanshin grinned. He barked a laugh and stabbed in a blur of steel and shadow.

Mathal roared and shoved her arm between her ribs and the rapier. The blade punched through her left arm, shadows eating as fast as her hexed body could repair itself.

Sivanshin lunged into her. Their skulls cracked against each other. His rapier thrust through her arm, her ribs, her lungs, her back, and dug into the stone of the pillar itself. It cut off her scream with a spray of blood over his shoulder.

But with his side crushing hers, the bat-topped baton was well within reach. Mathal’s free hand yanked that stupid stick off his belt.

The shadows stopped eating into her repairing flesh. Instead, they crept up over her, slick as oil, from the hole in her chest, her arm, and the hand gripping the stick. The hand of her pierced arm grabbed Sivanshin’s crimson lapel. His eyes widened at her glove of shadow. He jerked away, but Mathal held the vampire elf in place.

“Break.”

The liquid and flaming shadows froze. Sivanshin screamed. They shattered. Shadow exploded harmlessly through Mathal. The force threw Sivanshin back. He crashed against the cracked table. It snapped in two, heavy stone collapsing to the floor a cloud of dust.

Mathal’s witchlocks scraped down the length of the pillar. She hopped down the last few feet, landing lightly. She tossed the un-magicked relic over her shoulder.

Sivanshin climbed out from the table ruins, rapier in hand.

“Uh, Moris? What exactly was breaking that stick supposed to do?”

“He’ll...die...like any other...vampire,” Moris grunted as he fended off Jair’s clones and blades.

“You mean he’s still--”

“An almighty lord of the vampires, yes,” said Sivanshin, cracking his neck.

He looked down at his unlit blade. He sneered in distaste and tossed it over his own shoulder.

Mathal cursed. Sivanshin flew at her. Her body surged with hastening magic. He never slowed. The only difference was that Mathal could see every terrifying frame of flight at full speed.

She threw her arms up in a desperate guard, feet bracing against the dining room floor. As she blinked, liquid black shadow blurred from her side and solidified in humanoid form in front of her.

Sivanshin skidded off from Silana. It was possible they’d thrown him off. He floated up off the floor, the skin of his livid face stretched skull-tight.

“You’ve had your fun, witch. Now, stand down.”

Silana shook their shadow-masked head. When they spoke, their voice rang in Mathal’s ears the same as their screech.

“Just let them go, Ilnerik. Mathal and Morosino, too. They’re less than pawns in the grand scheme of things--they mean nothing.”

“Silana--”

“Look what you did to Vahn. Would you destroy us all over nothing?”

“Silana!”

Mathal’s eldest sibling froze. Sivanshin let out a deep, unnecessary sigh. He tossed his dishevelled silken locks back over his shoulder to look Silana straight in the eye.

“I am your undead master. I brought you and everyone else into this unlife. I have every right to take you out.”

Tentacle after shadow tentacle sprouted from Silana’s back. Sivanshin shifted into a levitating ready stance. His fingers beckoned. They flew at each other in a flurry of fist and shadow.

Mathal darted away toward Jair and Moris. The six clone blades knocked Moris’s out his hand. They grabbed him by the throat, sword arms coiling.

Magic surged into Mathal’s feet. She sprang into the air. The real Jair couldn’t hide from her true-seeing eyes. She dug her claws into their arm and back. Her witchlocks wrapped around their screamed head. 

Jair poofed in her hands. Moris fell to the floor. Mathal screamed and tore at the white mist sailing through her fingers.

Moris staggered onto one elbow. He held his other hand out toward the punk in the mist.

“Burn.”

A rush of heat and flame streamed from his hand to the cloud. Jair poofed back, screaming and flailing up into the air. Moris’s arm shook, but he kept his hand on the burning cleric. Jair’s body bashed against the stone ceiling. It crumbled away in a rain of black ash.

Moris groaned. He collapsed back onto the floor. Mathal ran to his side and ripped rags off his silk to staunch the worst of his wounds.

Silana and Sivanshin circled, clashed, and forced each other back over opposite ends of the broken table. For every blow Silana landed, Sivanshin tore through a tentacle as his flesh closed over.

Mathal’s guts curdled. Silana wasn’t making headway. They were simply the sole force holding Sivanshin back. From the count of their tentacles, they wouldn’t be able to hold him back for long.

Mathal tied off the last rag and threw the unconscious but no longer bleeding Moris over her shoulder--good enough for now.

“Run!” shouted Silana.

She dashed across the dining room and under the vampires’s feet. Sivanshin roared and swooped down at them.

Silana clapped their freed hands together.

“Ophelia!”

The entire building shook under Mathal’s feet. Stone screamed over the thundering crack of force tearing it apart from the foundation. Clouds of dust and showers of boulder burst up from the yawning chasm. A midnight blue dragon, thirty feet long and sixty feet across at the wings ripped through the rock of the dining room floor and every rock before it.

The dragon’s bone-shaking roar toppled portraits and curtains, Sivanshin and Mathal. Her knees banged the ground. She staggered up onto her hands, but blue lightning blasting from the dragon’s mouth stopped her from rising any higher.

Mathal curled around Moris as tight as she could and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t hear her own magic trigger word.

“Focus.”

Every ounce of weight vacuumed out of Mathal and Moris, too. This time, Mathal was ready. Magic surged into the soles of her feet. She pushed off out through a curtained and bricked window. The force of the magic hurled her through buildings, people, and into the quiet, empty night streets.

Mathal didn’t recognize any building on the block, but at least she and Moris were long gone from the third (and hopefully final) building she’d had a hand in razing to the ground. She floated up toward the faded stars over the cityscape to get her bearings. The bridge off the rich island was miles out to the west. She’d never get there before the wall-walking spell wore out and exposed them to the overzealous night guard of devouring shadows. They had to find shelter.

She floated down the block. Every building in this district was not only lit from within, warding off the beasts, but also a private residence. If the noble owners found her and Moris, nothing would stop them from turning the homeless, penniless trespassers out onto the street. With the last of her etherealness and a growing ball of leaden dread in her stomach, Mathal touched down onto the cobblestones before a heavy, iron manhole cover.

Mathal set Moris down and hexed herself one last time. Her strengthened fingers hooked through the two nearest holes in the cover. She flung the iron disk off into the street. Cobblestones shattered under its weight. The eye-burning, nose-cauterizing wet reek of humanoid waste spilled into the empty street.

She wiped her eyes and did a double take. No shadows flickered in any corner of her eyes. Mathal counted the seconds, breath held. Seconds stretched into minutes. She sunk to her knees, shoulders shaking.

They’d found Gorvio’s relic, and the stupid stick had actually worked. When Mathal broke its enchantment Sivanshin had lost all the shadows he must’ve been controlling on behalf of Oberigo and the Council. There went the night guard.

Mathal threw back her head in a wild cackle. She laughed herself to tears. She laughed so hard that the denizens of the district opened their windows and stuck out their heads.

“Excuse me! You’re breaking the noise ordinance!”

“Where’s the night guard?”

Mathal couldn’t stop cackling. She staggered up and hefted Moris over her shaking shoulders. She walked lone but easy through the city at night.


	38. Pleasure Island

Chapter 38: Pleasure Island

As soon as Mathal set foot in the guildhall, Crosael and Rizzardo came running down the same flight of curling stairs.

“Mathal!”

“Ma--Moris!” 

Both sported dishevelled hair. They straightened each other’s clothes on the way down without slowing.

“It’s night--how are you alive?”

“I thought you said Moris was dead--please don’t tell me he’s a vampire.”

Before she could answer any of their pressing questions, her stomach let out a monstrous growl. It echoed down the main hall.

“Ah, forgive us, you must be hungry,” said Crosael, lifting Moris off her shoulders and draping him over his arms like a coat.

“Yes, you should definitely eat before you start talking. Would you like some,” Rizzardo made a drinking bottle hand, “with that?”

“With what? The rest of my liquid dinner?”

“Not at all. You were gone for so long that we, ah, went out to acquire some solids for dinner.”

“As long as they were ‘acquired’ from rich people--”

“Trust me, a career thief, there’s no one else worth stealing from--the middle class is just poor with a house.”

Mathal slumped back into the first two chairs of chair city. She stretched her arms and legs out in front of her, luxuriously if as stiffly as the legs of the chairs under her. She had bruises on top of her bruises.

“Ok, yeah, I’ll take a,” she made a hand.

Crosael and Rizzardo joined her for dinner though she didn’t say a word. Exhaustion set in mid-chew, and she fell asleep with a half-eaten plate of unnameable hors d’oeuvres on her lap.

\--/--

Mathal awoke under the warm, growing light of mid-morning. Crosael, Rizzardo, or both had carried her into a room upstairs and laid her out on top of the bedcover. Though bare, the room was spotless. Her stomach growled as soon as she sat up. She pulled off her shoes and padded barefoot out into the hall.

Only one door besides her own was open. She padded down to the edge of the doorway. Moris laid under the bedcover, his silks replaced with a shift cut and sewn from a bedsheet. Crosael stood at his bedside adjusting a bottle he’d hung upside from the ceiling. The fluid piped down a thin tube of reeds into Moris’s arm.

“Don’t worry,” said Crosael without turning. “It’s not alcohol.”

“That’d be a lotta effort to kill someone,” Mathal snorted, her voice unexpectedly tight.

Crosael glanced back, eyebrow raised. Her black nails dug into the wood of the doorframe. It was a lot of effort to bring back her friend.

“Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. I’ll have you know I’m actually an excellent majordomo--all part of the job.”

“No kidding.”  
“None, indeed.”

He said nothing more, turning back to his work with the slightest upward curve at the corners of his mouth.

\--/--

Moris slept for three days straight. Those three days were the most boring but peaceful days of Mathal’s entire life. She would wake up at noon and bounce back and forth between Delvehaven’s moth-eaten library and a makeshift training room. Crosael handled the cleaning and saw to Moris while Rizzardo took charge of food acquisitions. They drew out mealtimes for two to three hours, alcohol flowing freely. Mathal and Rizzardo napped after brunch. Their naps grew longer and their bedtimes later with each passing day.

On the fourth day, six days before Fiosa’s deadline, Mathal woke to Crosael shaking her shoulder. She squinted, head pounding, into the gray dawn light that filled her room.

“He’s asking for you.”

The news hit her like a bucket of ice water. She sat straight up, Crosael barely jerking back in time to avoid a chin-to-head collision. Her eyes opened wide, and the light staked her from the sockets straight to the back of her skull. Mathal cursed and stumbled out of the bed. She ran past Crosael into the hall and down to Moris’s room

Moris sat in his bedsheet shift propped up by a stack of pillows. His paper-thin skin clung tight to the angles and hollows of his skeleton, but his eyes were bright and alert. He smiled and his entire face crinkled.

“You saved me.”

“Shut up.”

Mathal tackled Moris without touching him. The bed rattled under her knees. Her palms smacked the wall on either side of him. He laughed, his forehead bumping hers. She laughed, eyes burning, but at least she had her side to light breaking through the open window.

“I woke up and I saw Crosael and I was so confused.”

“Ha, I bet. He’s the one who really saved you--I left my healing with Tarvi.”

“Where is Tarvi? And Gorvio? Kulata?”

“Long story. Let me get you something to eat first. Rizzardo!” she shouted out the doorway. “Rizzardo!”

One minute of silence later, Rizzardo staggered in on his boyfriend’s shoulder. His bleary eyes met Moris’s and he perked up immediately.

“Moris!” he said at the volume of a shout before catching himself with a shushing finger. “Shhh. Moris. You’ve been asleep for three days or comatose, maybe. Let me get you something to eat.”

“Thanks, Rizzardo. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, right. Nice to meet you, too. Crosael and I are in an open relationship, by the way.”

Mathal threw one of Moris’s pillows at him. Rizzardo stuck his tongue out at her and spun away down the hall.

Mathal sat in a chair against the wall opposite Moris with the bright, light-leaking window between them and broke down the past week over breakfast. She skipped over her fight with Tarvi and almost everything that had transpired during her mistake of a holiday besides meeting her brother and Rizzardo and saying goodbye to ‘Kulata.’

Moris took it all in stride, nodding between bites of an omelette made from the plainest of last night’s leftovers.

“So when are we getting back to Tarvi and Gorvio?”

“I’ll show you how to get to the Way Station as soon as you’re feeling strong enough.”

“What about you?”

“I...don’t want to back.”

“Oh. You found another job?”

“No, but I don’t need one. The way Rizzardo, Crosael, and I are living now--I can live fine like this. Room and board is all I need.”

The booze didn’t hurt.

“Oh. Ok.”

Crosael eventually chased Mathal out the room to give Moris some physical therapy. Two days later, Moris was able to walk around on his own for short periods of time. Mathal guessed he’d be able to make the walk to the Way Station tomorrow, three days before the deadline. Three days early. 

She wasn’t ready to face Fiosa, much less Tarvi. She’d been avoiding thinking about her decision for the past...ever since Fiosa had given her the ultimatum. She wasn’t about to start now.

Mathal kicked open the door to the old parlor they’d converted into her training room. Crosael and Rizzardo laid on the floor in a tangle of limbs, cleaning fluid, and rags animated by unseen magic.

“Get out. I need to punch something.”

Rizzardo pushed up onto his arms to look back at her, but he didn’t move off the floor or Crosael.

“We’re busy. Come back in…?”

“Twenty-seven minutes,” her brother huffed.

“No. This is my training room. You want to have sex, go to your room.”

“Excuse me? Your training room? I’m the one keeping us all fed. Crosael keeps this place liveable. Mathal, what do you even do around here?”

“To the contributors goes the house.”

Mathal spat a curse onto the floorboards and slammed the door closed behind her. She ran up and down the stairs until she could barely see from all the sweat falling into her eyes. She smacked her sweaty palm against the wall of the upstairs hallway and trailed it all the way down to the massive chamber at the far end.

Crosael had cleaned the debris off the stone floor, but the hole that she and Gorvio had made in the ring of deactivated glyphs remained. Mathal pressed her palm flat against the break in the stone. She punched it.

“[Redacted]!”

Stupid. Childish.

She pulled her aching fist close to her chest. She climbed into the water elemental’s empty pool and sat with her back to the wall. She couldn’t look up from that position, but she didn’t want to see the fake stars anyway. She shut her eyes.

Crosael and Rizzardo were right. The thought left a bitter, burning bile in her mouth, but she couldn’t deny that they were the only ones doing anything in Delvehaven. She had nothing to do and nothing to contribute. The longer they stayed here, the less say she would have in any of these new rules. She could only become more childish. More self-destructive.

Mathal groaned. The sound echoed down from the fake stars above through the entire chamber. She climbed out of the empty pool and marched down to Moris’s room. 

He sat in bed reading but lowered his book at her approach.

“Do you want to see our friends today?”

“Yes! But I’m not strong enough to walk very far.”

“I can carry you.”

“Then yes!”


	39. Take Back the Night

Chapter 39: Take Back the Night

By the time Mathal and Moris had said their goodbyes, the sun sat low and heavy over the horizon. Crosael and Rizzardo waved at Mathal and Moris in her arms from Delvehaven’s porch. Moris waved back. Mathal focused on her magic to jump over the wall and onto the path at the top of the bluffs.

The surf roared and crashed below. Mathal stuck to the road above the sea and the setting sun. The trip was longer that way, but with the shadows gone, there was nothing left to fear from the night. And her arms needed the workout anyway.

“I’m gonna leave the part where we faced your dad up to you.”

“I’ll tell them. I’d just rather not mention he’s…”

“Got it.”

“What about Silana?”

“What about’em?”

“I thought the two of you were related, ever since I met you, actually.”

“Ha. I thought you and--”

With his memory modified by the Orphanage, Moris wouldn’t have remembered Arael. She shoved that memory all the way back to the bottom of its box. The murder of an old, once trusted friend was not something she needed to think about right before meeting Tarvi.

“Yeah. Silana’s the eldest. That we know of.”

“Then I’ll leave that to you.”

They got their stories straight as Mathal crossed from the narrow, stony ocean road into Gorvio’s district. The buildings were lit but the streetlamps weren’t. They hadn’t been lit since the installment of the nightguard. That no longer stopped the odd citizen or group from cautiously braving the streets with a lantern in hand. Moris smiled and waved at every brave soul they passed.

“You’re drawing attention.”

“We were already doing that. Besides, they need to know we weren’t attacked.”

Right, humans didn’t have dark-piercing eyes. The Chelaxians couldn’t see much of their faces or pick out the lack of red bloodstains. This way Moris and Mathal wouldn’t have to fend off anyone with questions or offers to help.

“Good call.”

“Thanks,” he giggled.

\--/--

Fiosa herself opened the door, eyes widening and narrowing in such rapid succession that both Mathal and Moris had to look away.

“Mathal, Moris, you’re early.”

“Hi, wow, you already know who I am.”

“Moris, this is Fiosa, she/her. She’s--”

“Tarvi! Gorvio! Your friends are back!” Fiosa shouted into the boarding house before shuffling to the side of the doorway. “Please, come in. I think we still have some cookies.”

Tarvi and Gorvio came charging down the stairs, yelling their names over the clattering wood. They jumped the last few steps and tackled Moris and Mathal in a group hug, still yelling. 

Gorvio pulled himself off first. Tarvi helped Moris out of Mathal’s arms and onto his feet with his arms over their shoulders for support. Fiosa shooed them all into the kitchen. She disappeared into the pantry while they took their seats.

Mathal and Moris each managed to keep their stories straight and consistent around mouthfuls of tapioca cookies.

“What about you two?” asked Moris.

Tarvi and Gorvio exchanged a look. A lot must’ve happened over the past week and all related to Fiosa’s slave-liberating operations. They could tell Moris and Mathal, but then they’d have to swear the two in. Moris reached for another cookie, but Fiosa pushed the plate away.

“You and I should have a chat.”

Mathal barely caught the plate before it slid off the countertop.

“Oh, ok, sure.”

Gorvio left with them to help Moris up the stairs. Or maybe to give Tarvi and Mathal some space. As soon as the three left, the kitchen plunged into an awkward, stuffy silence. 

Mathal left her stool to open the window and let in the cool night breeze. Tarvi gathered up the plates and put them in the sink. Mathal hopped onto the windowsill. The running water and clink of dishware mingled with the low, scattered voices on the street.

“You want to hear something funny?” Tarvi asked, her volume barely over the soft sounds that filled the kitchen.

“What?”

“When the shadows vanished, I knew it was you.”

“How?”

“I mean, I didn’t know--just some part of me suspected you’d done it. Or wanted you to have done it. And then Larko and Sclavo told us about a huge property of Oberigo’s that got destroyed in the middle of the night. ‘Razed to the ground and then some.’”

“It sunk into the sewer?”

“Apparently,” she chuckled.

Mathal’s laugh choked off mid-cackle.

“Sorry,” she blurted.

“Sorry for what?”

“You know. I said I got it. I didn’t. I do now. I really do. I was such a dumbass!”

Tarvi set down the dishes and turned off the water. She sat down on the other side of the windowsill. They both looked out into the street, but Mathal kept Tarvi’s face in the corner of her eye. She couldn’t have read that expression even if she’d been looking straight at her.

“Tarvi?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we...be friends again?”

“I think so. Yeah.”

Mathal let out a deep breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Good. Because you’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”

Tarvi never looked away from the window, but her fingertips found Mathal’s. They linked hands and watched the growing number of lights in the street.

Mathal headed up to her guest room around eleven. She laid in bed awake until midnight. She didn’t fall asleep. She simply got out of bed to see who was knocking on her door. 

Gorvio stood in the hall barefoot in blue-green pajamas, arms crossed. She waited for a full minute before he even looked at her.

“Is...this a good time?”

“Well, I can’t sleep.”

She shouldered past him to lean back against the rail of the second floor landing. He sunk down to a sprawl on the first few steps, head buried in his hands.

“To be honest, I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t come back.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“If you want me to leave--”

“No. It’s not you. When you left, everything was fine. But now that you’re back, I can’t stop feeling like [redacted] trash.”

“What the [redacted] Hell are you talking about?”

“It should’ve been me who lost their soul that day.”

“Fiosa tell you that?”

“No, no. You don’t...you don’t get it, do you?”

“Get. What.”

“I knew.”

He knew what the devil’s deal would do to Chelon.

Something twinged in Mathal’s chest. Something snapped.

She could see herself killing him. She would grab his throat and tear out his windpipe. She wouldn’t need magic. He wouldn’t try to stop her.

Gorvio was already dead. Consumed by guilt. The same guilt she’d felt in the kitchen with Tarvi.

Mathal slumped down the railing onto the floor. Her shoulders shook silently.

“You’d never survive Hell.”

“What?”

She snorted and wiped her eyes. Gorvio had killed the best part of his friend, but Mathal had killed a friend, too. She’d ripped out their chest and fatally poisoned them. The difference was she could let it go.

“I’ll never forgive you for...that, but it turns out my stupid choice was the right choice.”

Gorvio raised his tear-streaked face from his hands to gape at her.

“Yeah, no, I don’t regret it. And I know Chelon wouldn’t either.”  
He stayed quiet for a long time.

“So...what--what are we now?”

“I think...we’re good.”

Her stomach growled.

“And I’m hungry,” she said, pushing up to her feet. “Gonna get another cookie.”

Mathal padded over Gorvio and down the creaky stairs as quietly as she could. As she passed the dining room, a flicker of candlelight caught her eye. Fiosa stood at the window with a single candle in her hand. The elderly halfling didn’t look away from the night street as Mathal approached.

“You should be asleep.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you thought about the job?”

“Gonna take the rest of the time I have to do that.”

They fell into silence. Mathal turned on her heel toward the kitchen only to stop at the memory of their last ‘conversation’ together.

“I was too stupid and childish earlier. Sorry.”

“You were grieving. Grief takes us all on an emotional rollercoaster.”

“What’s a rollercoaster?”

Running steps echoed on the cobblestone. Not a minute later, the front door burst open. Mathal jumped. Fiosa didn’t move. Larko continued to run up the flight of stairs. Sclavo rushed into the dining room, adjusting his glasses.

“It’s today.”

Westcrown’s deadline to appoint a new lord-mayor or fall to the martial law of Lictor Richemar had come early. Fiosa had been wrong.

“Get everyone to the meeting room.”

She set her candle on the dining table and shuffled out the door. The flame had gone out.


	40. Bet on the House

Chapter 40: Bet on the House

The seven gathered around the low, wooden table upstairs. With the early arrival of Mathal and Moris, there were only five stools. Moris and Tarvi shared one. Gorvio and Mathal sat on the floor on either side of Gorvio’s. Larko slid Gorvio’s stool over to Moris and Tarvi’s side of the table. Tarvi took the new seat as Sclavo broke down the situation.

The top contenders for next lord-mayor of Westcrown were Vassindio Drovenge and Eirtein Oberigo. Oberigo had taken the attack and destruction of Walcourt as an act of war by Drovenge. The remaining nobles on the Council, apart from Chammady and Eccaridian, had tried to talk the two down over the past few days--

“Why not Drovenge’s kids?” asked Mathal.

“They’ve been in hiding, allegedly since they met with Drovenge about his candidacy,” said Sclavo.

“About a week now,” said Larko.

Oh. They were the ones who’d threatened to reveal the secret of House Drovenge. They were the reason he’d attacked the Maggot Tree.

Tarvi and Gorvio looked at Mathal. She explained the falsified lineage and Drovenge’s deal with the actual Mammon.

“That...is significant,” said Sclavo.

“Noted, please continue,” said Fiosa.

The destruction of Walcourt had also convinced the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune that there’d be no Westcrown left to rule by the original deadline, so they’d advanced it. This, in turn, dissolved the tenuous peace between the two noble houses. Now they planned to take their forces, the allies of Mammon against Oberigo’s vampires, to the streets in an all-out war.

“The irony,” muttered Gorvio.

“What’s the plan?” asked Tarvi.

“We bring Chammady and Eccaridian out of hiding,” said Fiosa.

There was a chorus of ‘what’s. Fiosa explained.

It wasn’t Vassindio Drovenge who was a top candidate. It was House Drovenge itself. Chammady, Eccaridian, or even both made perfectly viable contenders for lord-mayor. With both Vassindio and Oberigo proven dangers to the city, the remaining nobles on the Council would be more inclined to vote for anyone else.

“We offer to help the Drovenge kids get elected in exchange for a voice in the government.”

“What exactly do we have to offer?”

“Protection. We get them to City Hall alive.”

“And that’ll stop them fighting?”

“They’d be beyond stupid not to. Any more questions?”

“I don’t have any spells,” said Mathal.

“Then you’ll have to do without.”

She’d dealt with that for almost four months. She could do it for one day more.

“I still have mine prepped,” said Tarvi.

“Me too,” said Gorvio.

“I won’t be able to keep up,” said Moris.

“You’re not going with them,” said Fiosa. “Come with Larko, Sclavo, and me to City Hall.”

“You know where Chammady and Eccaridian are hiding?”

\--/--

Tarvi, Mathal, and Gorvio left at once for their hideout, a friend’s townhouse in Parego Regicona, the island of the rich at the center of Westcrown. All the bridges had been raised, cutting the island off from the rest of the city. Mathal cursed. She could’ve really used a swarm of wasps right then.

Tarvi pulled out Mathal’s wand of flight.

“Group hug, people.”

Mathal and Gorvio did their best to hold onto Tarvi from either side without touching each other. She flew them across the River Adivian, as black as the night sky and just as full of stars.

“Lower,” whispered Mathal.

“Do we have time for--”

Gorvio stopped as the tips of his and Mathal’s feet dangled over the surface of the water. The wind was enough to send long, widening trails of ripples out behind them and through the black sea of stars. He grinned with them despite himself.

The townhouse was one of many narrow but six-storied brick buildings on the block. Gorvio had infiltrated houses like these before. Each floor held only a single room.

“You have to climb a staircase to the bathroom both ways.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

Mathal knocked on the door.

“It’s the middle of the night! Go away!” a gruff voice shouted through the mahogany.

“I know you don’t know us,” said Tarvi, “but we know who you are and we’re here to help.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“We stopped the nightguard. We’ll stop your dad, too,” said Mathal.

The door opened a crack. A Hellknight in their full suit of spiky armor stood on the other. A personal guard of a Hellknight.

“Larazod! Drovalid! Dentris!”

And a fan of the arts. Paralictor Gonville Chard raised their visor.

“Wait, you were the ones who attacked Walcourt?”

“No, we just deactivated the relic controlling the shadowbeasts,” Gorvio half-lied.

“Were you followed?”

The three of them scanned the darkness behind them. No fourth person appeared. Chard opened the door to a foyer decorated with red and gold tapestries as well as a black marble staircase. Chard locked the door behind them and positioned themself in front of the staircase.

“Chammady! Eccaridian!” they shouted up, “I think your way out is here!”

The two auburn-haired, amber-eyed twins crept down the stairs looking far more haggard than they had since the banquet at Aberian’s Folly. Even Chammady’s feathered ruff and Eccaridian’s furred one had fallen and drooped around their shoulders.

Magic flared from the ceiling. Three hulking, humanoid creatures of stone dropped down into heavy, marble-bashing crouches. Chammady and Eccaridian screamed. Chammady ran downstairs while Eccaridian ran up.

Chard roared, sword drawn, and charged at the nearest earth elemental. Tarvi flung her hand up another. A lance of ice speared straight up through the body of second. Mathal launched herself at the third, claws tearing out stones. Gorvio stared up at the ceiling as though frozen.

“Get the invisible caster!”

His eyes dropped down at Mathal. They had glazed over like a dead body’s. He held up his palm.

“Fight.”

A tunnel of wind burst out at Mathal. She flew off the earth elemental and fell into a skidding crouch. Mathal cursed. Gorvio’s mind had been dominated like those mist punk vampires had tried to do to her.

“Mathal!”

A second lance of ice impaled her earth elemental.

“Protect the kids--I’ll deal with Gorvio.”

Chard ran up the stairs and Tarvi ran down. Gorvio’s palm remained facing Mathal.

“Fight.”

Blue-green lightning slammed into her chest. Mathal screamed a scream she couldn’t hear and hexed herself. The pain pounding in every muscle and fiber of nerve didn’t lessen, but her stitching sinew repaired the damaged tissue.

A second bolt struck. Mathal’s knees collapsed under her. She dropped to the floor and staggered to all fours.

A third. She hexed the ground under her. As the bolt pierced the skin, she grabbed into the quagmire. The charge flowed out into the semi-solid.

A fourth. She roared in pain but spread the quagmire out under Gorvio’s feet. The charge followed.

Gorvio’s mouth opened in scream. He fell back into the quagmire but pushed back up onto his hands and knees. He raised one arm out at her.

“Don’t do it.”

“Fight.”

The fifth bolt struck her below the collarbone. She screamed. It passed through her into the swamp and up into Gorvio. He screamed and called a sixth bolt.

His body wracked with the massive charge. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. He dropped face-first into the quagmire.

Mathal groaned. A bone-deep ache had set into her entire skeleton. But she couldn’t drop like Gorvio. She ended the hex on the ground. Mathal pushed up to her feet and staggered down the staircase into a damp, moldy brick basement.

Chammady cowered in the corner with Tarvi in front of her, both arms out and straining. A flurry of razor-sharp shards of ice blasted from her hands. It barely held back the searing rays of flame shooting from the hands of a flying figure masked in black.

Mathal’s muscles tensed and coiled to spring at them. Their nails caught her eye--black with a shining detail of constellations.

“Amaya!”

Mathal couldn’t hear her own call, but the figure did. Their mask snapped toward her. The gouts of flame vanished with their shifted thought.

Tarvi’s ice slammed into them. The figure hit the bricks just under the ceiling and toppled down.

Mathal sprang and caught their limp, red-leaking body. She pulled out her wand.

Tarvi ran up the stairs to check on Eccaridian and Chard. Chammady slumped against her corner. She slid down shakily.

Three charges later, the figure stirred. They pried the mask off their face. Amaya.

“Hey babe.”

Amaya’s voice was too low to pierce the ringing in her ears, but Mathal recognized the familiar shapes of her mouth.

“What’s chillin, my villain?”

Amaya threw her arms around Mathal’s neck. Her sobs went unheard straight into Mathal’s shoulder.

Mathal carried Amaya back up to the parlor with Chammady on her heels. Tarvi, Chard, and Eccaridian had come downstairs as well. Someone had laid Gorvio out on the sofa.

Mathal sighed. She set her other best friend down and squatted by Gorvio with the wand. He didn’t wake, but he breathed easier after another three charges.

The others gathered on soft, plush chairs around a shining, redwood coffee table. Tarvi explained the situation to Chammady and Eccaridian. Mathal joined them, sitting on the arm of Amaya’s chair. Amaya rolled her eyes and pulled Mathal into her lap.

“I’m seeing a holes in this plot,” said Eccaridian.

“Not the most significant, but I don’t think we could both be lord-mayor,” said Chammady.

“No, you can,” said Mathal.

She explained the devil’s lord-mayor aptitude test in Aberian Folly’s magic vault. The devil had accepted both her and Gorvio.

“So it’s...precedented. That’s probably our best option, then.”

“We’ll have to be at City Hall at dawn.”

Everyone agreed to escort them as close to the time as possible to keep from having to find a place outside City Hall to wait--they’d likely be discovered. There was no guarantee beyond Fiosa’s logic (hope?) that getting the two elected would prevent or halt the all-out war between Drovenge and Oberigo, but they were out of time to deal with the Houses. They fell into somber silence.

Gorvio jolted up to sitting. Everybody jumped.

“Fight--”

“Don’t do that,” said Amaya, waving her hand.

Gorvio’s eyes cleared. He lowered his palm, massaging his forearm, his neck, his temples.

“Ow.”

“Sorry about that.”

“What’d I miss?”

“Nothing much,” said Chard, getting up to stretch. “I know you were just out, but you should get some rest. All of you. Go time in three hours. Go take a nap.”

Mathal and Amaya mock-saluted.

“Aye-aye, cap’n.”

They looked at each other and burst into a cackling fit. Aching nerves aside, this was going to be fun.


	41. Face/Off

Chapter 41: Face/Off

With Paralictor Chard leading the way, Mathal, Amaya, Tarvi, Gorvio, Chammady, and Eccaridian slipped through the quiet streets and alleys in the darkness waning before the dawn. The weaving cobblestone pathways opened up to a plaza as large as any manor grounds. A ninety-foot-tall bronze statue of Aroden, dead god of Westcrown, broke the city skyline from its center. A twenty-foot-wide ring of still water circled the statue’s feet. Stone benches sat at the eight points of a compass along the outer ring of the reflecting pool. A long grove of towering oaks stretched out from behind the statue to the street across from City Hall at the far end.

“If this place is supposed to help us reflect on how short we are, I think they managed it,” muttered Gorvio.

Paralictor Chard soundlessly shushed him. The six skirted the edge of the plaza as the breaking dawn bathed the dead god in soft gray light. The sun bloomed up from the tiled rooftops and over the statue’s shoulders to form a gentle halo behind its head. The six pressed themselves flat into the nearest shadowed alcoves at the sound of falling, crashing water. 

Two rivers of tears ran from the unseeing eyes of bronze. Red and gold flickered from their corners. The six watched, frozen, as two trails of fire followed the tears down the statue and set the reflecting pool alight in a blazing inferno at the dead god’s feet.

A glass-rattling siren blared throughout the plaza and all of Westcrown. Citizens of all ages poked their heads out from the windows and ran into the streets. The rich and their slaves who lived near City Hall did the same, running into the plaza and some past the six themselves.

“What do we do?” asked Eccaridian.

Before anyone could answer, three humanoid shapes floated out from the head of the dead god. Mathal had never seen the pale, gold-suited noble of Taldan heritage at their center. The woman on their right, a chalky-skinned Chelaxian with short, steel gray hair, and the woman on their left, a tall, fallow-skinned Kellid in six-inch stilettos, she recognized with a curse. Tarvi and Amaya cursed with her.

“Westcrown!” called out the noble between Janiven and Ghontas, their voice amplified by magic to fill the plaza and boom over the siren. “Behold your new lord-mayor! Vassindio Drovenge! Here to take Westcrown into a new age of wealth and prosperity for all!”

“We should go,” said Mathal.

“Wait!” said Tarvi. “We can’t just run. If they’ve rigged the statue, they’ve probably rigged the whole plaza with whatever.”

Amaya snapped her fingers.

“Hellknight. You and me are both taking point so I can watch for magi--”

The shadows of their alcoves deepened, definitely by magic. A liquid black shadow in the sky above stretched from corner to corner over the plaza. From the way that Vassindio had completely stopped his triumphal entry speech, the shadow wasn’t part of the plan.

As the six crept forward along the walls, two humanoid shapes floated up from the grove of oaks. Mathal had never seen the pale, silver-suited noble of Taldan heritage, but she recognized the deathly pale elf in crimson at the noble’s side.

“Drovenge!” the silver-suited noble called out, their voice similarly amplified. “Come down there before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. What conquerer lays claim to an entire city...without an army?”

A thick white fog rolled out from between the trees to fill the plaza. The six shrank back into the darkened, shadowed alcoves. The mist rolled up from the ground and into the air. Small clouds tore off from the mass fog and gathered in separate spheres, hundreds upon hundreds of them. The first fog sphere poofed into a black-suited vampire. The next followed suit. The next. The next.

“How about change of plan,” said Mathal, voice hushed. “We cut through.”

“I’ve got your back,” said Gorvio.

Amaya and Tarvi nodded at each other. They’d take the back and sides. Chard would stay with Chammady and Eccaridian.

A group of vampires turned their stares from Drovenge and his bodyguards to Drovenge’s kids and their bodyguards. The Sivanshin and the silver-suited noble turned. So did Drovenge, Ghontas, and Janiven. Mathal, Amaya, and Tarvi waved sheepishly.

“You didn’t bring your army, you brought your children. Excellent parenting.”

Drovenge cursed.

“Eirtein, a favor, if you would.”

“I’m listening.”

They all were.

“Send some of your army in their direction, would you?”

Chammady’s palms pounded Mathal’s back.

“Go!”

“My pleasure.”

Mathal hexed herself. The vampires vanished. Amaya snapped her fingers.

“I don’t think so.”

Mathal could see them. All six of them could. She grinned and sprang at the incoming vampires. Her nails ripped through their flesh like paper, witchlocks slamming another into the stones of the plaza. They kept coming.

Four vampires immediately replaced their fallen brethren. They grabbed her arms and yanked her into the air.

A deafening storm of blue-green lightning thundered out from behind her. Hundreds of short range bolts lanced out in an instant striking down every vampire in a thirty-foot radius. They sizzled and dropped, smoking like burnt bacon.

Mathal tumbled down to the ground, rolling up to the balls of her feet. She ran through the circle of smoking vampires. A new wall of snarling, fanged faces flew down to meet her. 

She couldn’t hear her own roar but she felt the breath like flame in her throat. She launched herself at the center of the wall, ripping, tearing, and slamming a red hole through the black suits. As she burst through the back of the wall in a shower of flesh and blood, one wing of fire and one wing of ice exploded out from either side of her. The wall came tumbling down.

On the other side stood Director Janiven, leather-wrapped fists raised in a ready stance. She shook her head at Mathal, glowering, and said something none of them could hear. Mathal pointed at her ear.

“Ah.”

The last word was the only word Mathal recognized. Janiven blurred. Janiven’s fists moved so fast that Mathal could only track them by where they broke her bones.

Mathal screamed and sweat, but her hexed body wouldn’t let her drop. She sprang at Janiven, healing as she struck back. 

Janiven’s bracers deflected her claws in a spray of sparks. She shifted out of the way of the witchlocks with half a step. It was just enough room for her to spring into a second bone-breaking barrage.

Her fists knocked the blood and spit out of Mathal, but they also knocked in a sliver of sense. She was a healing punching bag and Janiven could punch forever. She couldn’t win this fight. At the last punch, Mathal dropped flat to the ground.

A single bolt of blue-green lightning as broad as a waving banner slammed into Janiven’s chest. She screamed. It exploded out from her back, spreading to the nearest vampire. Janiven’s leathers smoked, but she stayed on her feet. She charged at Gorvio.

A stream of fire knocked her off target. And into a flurry of razor-sharp shards of ice.

Janiven dropped to her hands and knees. Dark red pooled under her, spreading to Mathal in seconds. Their eyes met, Mathal’s wide and Janiven’s wincing in huffed pain. The corner of Janiven’s mouth curved upward. Something twinged in Mathal’s chest.

Two helping hands tore Mathal’s eyes off Janiven. She clasped palms and Gorvio and Chard pulled her up to her feet. They couldn’t stop. They were halfway home.

Mathal grit her teeth and charged back into the fray, leaving Janiven to the vampires. She roared into the hoard of black suits. The longer she cut them down, the more screams she could hear over her ringing ears. One, she recognized. Tarvi.

Mathal ripped her nails out from vampire throats, head jerking over her shoulder. Sivanshin’s rapier poked out from Gorvio’s back. Gorvio grabbed at the metal, but Sivanshin only shoved it further into his body. Gorvio’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. Sivanshin flung his body off the end of his rapier, and it hit the ground like a wet suit.

Mathal whipped out her wand with a growl. In the span of a single charge, a wing of fire and a wing of ice burst out at Sivanshin from either side. He cut through both in a flurry of whistling steel. Mathal’s pounding pulse drowned out all other sound. They couldn’t take him.

She dropped the wand and charged, clawing at his back. Sivanshin caught her nails on the edge of his sword.

“You. I’m going to enjoy--”

“Do it!” Mathal shouted over him.

“But--” said Tarvi.

Fire exploded into Sivanshin, catching Mathal in the blasting flames. The force slammed their burning bodies into the stones of the plaza.

“Sorry.”

Jagged spears of ice rained down from above. She threw her arms over her head and neck. The ice lanced as sharp as glass through flesh and vein. Mathal’s scream cut off in a bloody gurgle.

Her stitching sinew beat back the darkness at the edge of her sight. Sivanshin stood over her, one hand dusting shards of ice off his singed suit.

“I’m glad to see someone here means business.”

His rapier stabbed down through Mathal’s chest to tap the ground like the end of a cane. She choked and sputtered red. His other hand pointed in Tarvi’s direction, fingers curling to claws. Ice and fire flew overhead.

Without moving his sword, Sivanshin crouched down and grabbed Mathal by the hair. He lifted her to sitting, sliding Mathal up the bloody blade to see Amaya desperately fending off vampires and a dominated Tarvi. Chard could barely keep the vampires off Chammady and Eccaridian with Amaya’s flagging help.

“You made a valiant effort, I’ll give you that--more initiative than my son’s ever shown. But for what?”

He chuckled in her ear.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to kill you. I just want you to watch your friends kill each other first. Then watch your candidate, candidates(?) fall to my spawn. That much, I owe you.”

Without looking away from her fighting friends, Mathal tore at the throat over her shoulder. Her nails ripped red flesh into the air.

Sivanshin slammed the back of her head to the ground. Stone and skull cracked. Her vision blurred. Sivanshin’s wet cough faded as though into the distance. All the strength bled out from her limbs.

Mathal closed her eyes. Sivanshin was right. They had made a valiant effort. It’d gone down in ice and flames, sure, but they’d tried. Mathal had tried. She wondered if Janiven had felt the same peace when she’d died.

A whirring, roaring scream of wind jolted her eyes back open. Storm clouds hidden behind the liquid black shadow in the sky whirled down through the darkness. Lightning cracked and thundered in the funnel as storm spun into a thirty-foot-wide tornado.

Vampires fought to stay in the air as their suits pulled them toward the vortex. It sucked the wounded in first, vacuuming away their screams.

Blue-green lightning cracked over Mathal and slammed straight into Sivanshin. He roared and seized the hilt of his rapier. Mathal’s hands closed around the blade.

A second bolt, more deafening than the last, blasted Sivanshin between the eyes. The bone-shaking jolt travelled straight down the rapier into Mathal. She screamed, but she didn’t let go.

A third bolt. It was too much. The twitching, smoking Sivanshin yanked the rapier out her chest and up through her fingers, slicing them to the bone. From his hunched form, his eyes locked on Gorvio.

Deafened, Mathal didn’t hear the clank of armored boots on stone. Neither did Sivanshin.

The Hellknight’s sword swung clean through the Sivanshin’s neck. The vampire’s severed head and body crumbled to ash. The whipping winds whisked them away.

Gorvio ran to Mathal, wand in hand. He charged her until she could sit up. Her hexed body took care of the rest.

“Amaya!”

Gorvio helped Mathal to her feet. Amaya and Tarvi leaned on each other’s shoulders, no longer fighting but catching breath. Chard had returned to Chammady and Eccaridian, the twins bracing against the slackening winds.

The tornado no longer touched down on the plaza stones. The end of the swirling vortex shrank back toward the shadow above. Amaya and Tarvi both nodded at Mathal and Gorvio. They were ready.

The six ran and tore their way through the thinning crowd of vampires to City Hall.


	42. Terms and Conditions

Chapter 42: Terms and Conditions

The six ran up the black marble stairs and between two of the twelve columns carved with the twelve guises of Aroden that supported the massive dome overhead. Mathal kicked the heavy double doors open. The entrance hall stretched east and west as far as the eye could see with multiple staircases winding up to second floors and higher.

“We’ll take it from here.”

Chammady and Eccaridian led them up to the second floor and down a marble hall flanked by two more halls on either side. Their footsteps echoed like stones thrown at the tile.

The door at the end of the hall opened into City Hall’s courthouse, a room most of them had only ever seen as depicted onstage. Mathal had to hand it to Millech, he’d created an incredibly faithful bench setpiece. Fiosa, Moris, Larko, and Sclavo leaned against the wooden jury seating area. Fiosa knocked on the wood. Four heads popped up over the edge, the remaining four members of the noble Council.

“Oh thank Asmodeus you’re here. We vote either of you in unanimously.”

“Not yet,” said Fiosa.

Of course. They couldn’t swear in the Drovenges without some guarantee that the people would actually get a voice or all their effort would be wasted.

Fiosa hopped down from her seat. She walked down the aisle between the pews for the audience, fingers beckoning. Everyone but the final four councillors followed her out of the courtroom.

She led them down the hall to an office lined with bookshelves. Eight plush velvet chairs circled around a mahogany desk and the three chairs behind it. Larko and Sclavo took two of the seats at the desk. They pulled out a three-foot-long, curling sheet of parchment from the drawer as the others took their seats. 

Fiosa caught Mathal’s little finger at the doorway. Mathal stepped back into the hall to let Chard and Amaya pass by. They had seats despite Fiosa not having sworn them into her operations. 

Fiosa stepped into the hall with her with one seat in front of the desk still unfilled. Mathal’s gut turned to lead as Fiosa shut the door behind her.

“The seat’s not for me.”

“No.”

“It’s for the devil.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Here’s the sitch.”

They could swear in Chammady and Eccaridian today and have them abolish slavery by noon. Then they could be assassinated by nightfall and replaced by a lord-mayor who’d bring it back tomorrow morning. Or worse, a new lord-mayor could pretend to stick with their ruling and bring slavery back under some subtler, nameless form created by a dozen of perfectly legal processes all working together to the same effect.

“We a contract that’ll bind every lord-mayor of Westcrown afterward to the same watch-doggery that we need from Chammady and Eccaridian.”

“That’s gonna be some tricky wording.”

“Larko and Sclavo can handle it. All we need is--”

“--a magic secretary.”

Mathal slumped against the wall opposite Fiosa’s, the marble cool against her sweat-slicked skin.

“If I’d sworn myself to your service, would you have just ordered me to give you my last wish?”

“Never. I’m not asking you to be selfless and think of the people. I’m asking you for a sacrifice. That, I could never order.”

Mathal let out a long sigh.

“When this was all over, I was gonna choose to work for you. Turns out apart from killing, the one thing I’m kinda good at is saving this stupid city.”

But after she used her last wish, she wouldn’t have to make that choice anymore. It was almost worse. Almost.

“I really don’t like slavery.”

Mathal covered her mouth with her hand and spoke into her palm.

“Khazrae.”

Footsteps echoed from the far end of the hall. A fashion disaster stalked through the shadows. Crosael’s floppy hat laid askew over Khazrae’s horns. The cloak of a shepherd laid over one wing. The cloak of a soldier over the other. The spectacles of a scholar rested on the bridge of their nose. They wore the long, pocket-filled jacket of a merchant with a beggar’s satchel tossed over their shoulder. A tailor’s vest peeked out from behind an artist’s apron, cinched with an artisan’s toolbelt. The rubber pants of a fisherman tucked into the muddy boots of a farmer. The gloves of a thief provided the final, mismatched touch.

“Should I ask?”

“If you don’t think you want to know, then you don’t want to know,” Khazrae grinned.

Mathal cackled weakly.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Isn’t it? And hello to you too, Fiosa.”

“The little secretary is all grown up. I’ll give you a moment.”

Fiosa went back into the office, shutting the door. Khazrae leaned back against the wall beside Mathal.

“You picked that last wish pretty fast.”

“Ha. Kinda. Just go with whatever Fiosa, Lark, and Sclavo say in there. That’s the wish.”

“That’s awfully vague.”

“Trust me, it won’t be.”

“Alrighty then.”

Khazrae opened the door but stopped in the doorway.

“You’re not coming in?”

Mathal shook her head. She didn’t want to spend her last hours on Golarion in a stuffy room. She left the building to sit on the City Hall steps and looked out into the plaza.

The few remaining vampires had surrounded Ghontas, beating her into the stone. Her grasping hand shot into the air with the last of her strength. Roaring fire exploded out from her, incinerating the last of the vampires.

The shockwave knocked the silver-suited Oberigo and the gold-suited Drovenge into the reflecting pool with a massive splash. They were just lucky Drovenge’s tear-flames had already burned out.

The two staggered up to their hands and knees in their torn, singed, and now sopping rags. Mathal watched with her chin in her hands as they shouted the other’s name and threw themselves at each other. Others came out to watch from the edges of the plaza. She cackled weakly.

They hadn’t stopped beating the other down by the time that footsteps echoed on the marble behind her. The crowd had grown to fill every street and corner. 

Mathal rose to her feet without looking away. Khazrae stopped on the step beside her.

“You were right. That wasn’t vague at all.”

She snorted.

“Yeah. K, I’m ready.”

“For…?”

Mathal held her hand out to them. Khazrae blinked. Then burst into a wild fit of laughter.

“What.”

“Nobody ever reads the whole contract,” said the devil, wiping their eye.

“You mean…”

“I already have your soul back in Hell. The rest of you joins it when you die, however you die. I only came out here to say goodbye.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.”

Mathal turned back to the plaza, every ounce of her weight replaced with a strange lightness. She smiled quietly.

“Wanna watch a couple nobles beat the [redacted-dact] out of each other before you go?”

“I’d love to.”

Khazrae took her hand. Mathal and the devil sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the shadowed steps of City Hall and watched as the two nobles beat the [redacted-dact] out of each other.


End file.
